Monday, September 20, 2010

Twitter Followers Purchase More Than Facebook Fan.

Social media figures and charts are pretty rare, at least the ones that really matters. But I found this very interesting study. It aims to show how social media campaigns could generate sales. The idea is to compare in a poll how likely Facebook fans or Twitter followers are willing to buy or recommend.
It seems that Twitter users are at least twice more likely to purchase from a brand after becoming a follower than it would be if he would be a Facebook Fan of the brand. Also very interesting is the fact Email have great results. As a matter of fact, while you accept a brand to send you emails, that means that you allow him to access your main feed, which remains your email account. Email is still the most commonly use tool to connect with other. Also, brands know better how to use emailing than social media so far.

Now another interesting chart: Twitter followers seem to be better at referring to peers than Facebook's.

So what conclusion can we establish. Well, it is difficult to draw anykind of analyzis. It seems that Twitter is better to boost sales. I agree with this fact. But as explain the writter of the main article, Facebook fans might be more difficult to convince to buy more because the fan status is more engaging than following a brand. Showing out you are fan of a brand mean it is part of your everyday life. At some point, it is like you are already a great customer. Twitter followers might buy more because Twitter is more adapted to generate sales, but on a customer relationship management point of view, Facebook is an awesome tool.

Actually those results are great for both community manager and CRM people. That means that inside social media exist two very different kind of media which could be used for different purpose. It shows the complexity of social media, but also why it is interesting to invest into the conversation.

And you, what do you think about it?