It is still not really clear what the social consumer looks like exactly. But step by step the picture is becoming clearer. The digital advertising agency Beyond recently conducted research into this and published the results . As an advertising agency, Beyond works for Google, among others. The results of the research resulted in a profile of the social consumer. The differences between low sharers and high sharers in relation to the type of products they buy is a new approach. Recommendations have a different influence on low sharers and high sharers . Here too, it appears that SEO still plays a very important role.
Profile of the social consumer
The average social consumer is still largely guided by a search action. Young women are cyprus phone number list mainly influenced by images and buy online on impulse the somewhat cheaper products, which they like to inform their girlfriends about. But for the real recommendation it is mainly the group of middle-aged men, who are reasonably brand loyal and who make their recommendation for products with a low purchase frequency, think of cars. With this recommendation, this group can enormously influence the buying impulse of the friends in the network.
53% use Facebook to look at a brand. Brands themselves don't really realize this yet;
40% become fans of a brand;
20% check the brand's Facebook page every week;
I would like to point out once again the IBM research , which shows that most brands are not yet aware that such a large group of Facebook followers check the Facebook pages of brands and products every week.
The high sharers and the low sharers
20% of the respondents could be placed in the group of 'sharers who share messages high-frequency'. They mainly comment on less complex products, think of fashion, beauty products etc. Their influence is relatively low. The other 80% are 'low sharers', who share messages low-frequency. They mainly comment on complex products, think of cars, mobile phones, TVs, etc. Their influence is high.
Conclusions and Advice for Brands on Facebook
Make sure your Facebook page has an app;
Use text and images for your message board posts to entertain your fans;
Challenge fans to respond by asking questions;
Don't go looking for negative messages or customer care questions too much. The number of times that this happens is low and the influence on the number of fans on the page is zero. It also appears that responding too much to such messages has a negative influence on the number of fans;
Don't forget why visitors become fans of your page. They want to be the first to know about your products and they want to be rewarded for their loyalty;
Some brands (like Apple) use a number of product pages instead of one brand page. This seems to work well, because people are more likely to be fans of a product than a brand.
Scroll down for the extended infographic (click on the image to enlarge) or read the extensive research report (PDF ).
Science of sharing infographic