Facebook Fans
The Future Foundation’s Jason Mander gives an insight into the behaviour of Facebook fans who “like” a brand…
The introduction of branded “timelines” on Facebook heralds a significant change in the way social relationships between companies and consumers are formed. While it was once the case that netizens were required to “like” a brand in order to access content or offers, companies will now need to work much harder to convert a social networker into a “follower”.
In this report, we place a spotlight on Facebook “fans” – looking into Future Foundation’s 2012 consumer research for our nVision service to analyse how the behaviours of those who “like” brands compare to those of other consumers.
In 2012, 45% of UK social networkers say that they keep up with a product or brand by “following” or “liking” it – a figure which has climbed from 30% in 2010 and includes almost two-thirds among 16-24 year olds.
Brand “likers” are more likely to be active networkers. While in total 31% of the UK online population is a brand “liker” or follower, this rises to 45% among all social networkers and 65% among those who log in or send a message on a social network at least once a week.
But the introduction of Facebook’s timeline can be expected to bring disruption here. With networkers no longer needing to “like” a brand in order to access offers or extra content, convincing them to become (and remain) followers will represent a much greater challenge.
So in this article we will look at the profile of brand “likers” or followers – tracking their behaviours and attitudes in order to determine what holds appeal for Facebook ‘fans’.
Brand followers
Brand followers are likely to be logging on to their favourite social platforms on an almost daily basis. Over 85% of those who have “liked” or “followed” a brand are frequent networkers – with nearly 60% of brand fans being those who connect several times a day. In fact, only just over a quarter of non-stop networkers do not keep up with brands.
Those who “follow” or “like” brands are among the most technologically minded consumers – with penetration levels for various devices consistently out-pacing those seen among the general online population. Ownership levels fall to their lowest among internet users who do not use social networks. They are also much more likely to use apps on their smartphones:
F-commerce
“F-commerce” remains in its nascent stages, with only 3.5% having ever bought something on Facebook. But almost all of those who have purchased a product through Facebook to date are brand followers (with 10% of “fans” agreeing, compared to under 1% of networkers who have not “liked” a brand). F-commerce is almost exclusively for brand fans.
But brand “followers”, compared to the wider online and networking populations, take a more playful approach to price. 84% of them would be interested in “a device which alerted you the instant the online price of a product you wanted had decreased (so that you could buy it immediately if you wished)” against 68% of non-brand-followers and 53% of social networkers.
One recent example of a brand using Facebook “likes” to drive interest within the social networking community was Fat Face’s “Leap Day Giveaway” in February 2012. The promotion encouraged users to “like” a branded post in order to enter a competition (ensuring, along the way, that it would appear in the newsfeeds of any Facebook user whose friend had “liked” it).
Brand “followers” also express comparatively high interest in joining buying groups like Groupon:
In 2011, Swedish supermarket ICA Vanadis offered specific discounts on a weekly basis to customers who checked-in their location on Facebook while visiting a Stockholm branch of the store. The more people who checked-in, the greater the discount became. The brand said it had plans to roll out the initiative to other stores based on the success of the trial.
Networking behaviours
As this chart shows, Facebook fans are much more likely than others to agree that they are always sharing details of new products and services with others:
And, already, we see a number of brands attempting to harness this power in online contexts. In April 2012, Air New Zealand announced that it would reward those whose recommendations of its Premium Economy offer led to others making a booking. Those who endorsed the premium seats on such platforms as Twitter, Facebook and blogs were given the chance to earn £50 cashback against their own bookings.
Future Focus
As the 10s evolve, networking is likely to assume a more intimate and controlled character, with digital footprint management becoming a more salient concern and consumers wanting to see tangible rewards for interacting with a brand (especially when such encounters require details to be broadcast within their contact networks).
The introduction of Facebook’s timeline feature for brands will encourage many netizens to question the benefits of having corporate friends on social platforms; as “liking” a brand becomes a choice rather than a necessity, so the type of active consumer-brand engagement which we have seen to date will be harder to initiate.
In turn, we can expect the mechanics of reward and personalisation to grow in stature: what will a fan get in return?
The coming decade is bound to bring further attempts to integrate more of our online activities inside social networks – with providers making it ever easier to, say, watch sport matches, view films, purchase items, send messages via a range of platforms.
F-commerce will attract considerable amounts of time and energy from brands. By the mid to late 10s, purchasing an item through a social network may seem completely unextraordinary.
For more, please contact:
Richard Nicholls – 020 3008 6103 / richardn@futurefoundation.net
Jason Mander – 020 3008 5746 / jasonm@futurefoundation.net