Company News · October 18, 2012

Want To Grow Your Brand Through Social Media? Let’s Make A Deal

By edison

By: Laura Silvia

It’s no surprise that everybody likes a good deal. I often see posts on my Facebook feed from friends who scored a great deal with coupons, or from the discount blog I subscribe to with the deal of the day.  How does this translate to brands?  In the latest study in The Social Habit series from Edison Research, we found that American consumers who use social media are using it to learn about brands, and that deals and discounts top the list of reasons why they follow them–but are far from the only reason.

To start, we found that over two-thirds of 18-44 year olds who use social media follow brands on social media, and nearly three quarters (72%) of 25-34s do. Remarkably, when these brand followers turn specifically to social media for brand or product information, over three-quarters turn to Facebook first for company and product information.

The fact that the single largest slice of the pie here belongs to a company’s Facebook page is a pretty good indicator that your brand’s Facebook page is a pretty good place to allocate some resources. So, what are these consumers looking for? Well, what lures many of them is the deal.  Two-thirds of American social media users age 12+ who follow brands, products or companies on social media say that obtaining deals, discounts or coupons is the reason why they do so.

Two interesting things here: First of all, while the “deal” is number one, it isn’t number one by much. Deals and discounts may be the most often-cited reason for visiting a page, but liking/supporting the brand and learning about new products are also quite high. The second thing to note is that this question asks for a general reason. In The Social Habit, we also probed into the habits of those who follow specific brand types–including restaurants, food brands and financial services companies–and found that once the respondents were focused on these specific types of brands, their reasons for following varied considerably (you can learn more about these specific data points by subscribing to The Social Habit!)

Perhaps this reflects the economic climate a bit, but regardless of the economy, money talks. And when there are savings involved, people will listen. Add social media into the mix, and the message can grow exponentially.

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