One of the areas in marketing that gets a lot of attention these days is how brands use social media. High profile sites like Facebook and Twitter have some incredible stats, but is social media an appropriate place to do marketing, or is it just an accelerated amplified kind of word of mouth?
As part of our ‘Marketing to Women’ survey, we asked women in the Purl Influencer Panel to answer some questions about their relationship with brands and social media.
Our analysis of brand perceptions suggested that social media was not as important as factors like service levels or the look and feel of stores or websites – in fact, the way brands interact on social media was ranked 6th out of 7 in a list of things that influence women’s perceptions of brands.
However when asked directly about social media, 85% of women surveyed think that social media is an important tool for brands to engage with female consumers.
Do women Like brands on Facebook?
However, just because women say that social media is an important tool, doesn’t mean that they are using it for that purpose. Like mobile phones, which are used for peer-t0-peer communication, the primary purpose for using social networks is to interact with friends first and foremost and brands second, if at all.
Of the 78% of women surveyed who use Facebook – 42% have ‘liked’ a brand, which while less than half is still a large number when you think about the numbers of people who use Facebook.
Do women Follow brands on Twitter?
Different social media is used by different kinds of people for different reasons. Twitter is misunderstood by many, but it can be a powerful communication tool for brands to talk to consumers and vice-versa.
Over 70% of the women in the Purl Influencer Panel use Twitter – which is a surprising number in itself. This is higher than we would expect in the ‘average’ population, but it could show that Twitter is used as a tool where the currency is influence.
However, of the women who do use Twitter, fewer are using it to ‘follow’ brands. Only 21% of those who use Twitter follow brands.
