Figaro teamed up with Lightspeed Research to conduct an in-depth survey of the nature of users' engagement with brands and branded content on social media
Given that the dictionary definition of ‘engagement’ includes marriage, meeting and military action it’s no wonder many marketers remain divided over what it means and why it matters. As the relationship between brands and audiences grows more complex, as consumers themselves are encouraged to take on a role more akin to partners, and as brands move into territory traditionally associated with broadcasters, publishers and other content providers, understanding the nature and value of engagement is vital.
To find out more, Figaro commissioned Lightspeed Research to conduct an in-depth survey exploring user-engagement with brands and branded content on social media. What attitudes and behaviours does it provoke, who does what with whom, and what’s the relationship between engagement and conversion? The results provide an interesting snapshot of the ways in which we consume a variety of content, and point to the effectiveness – or otherwise - of different social strategies.
First up, a note on methodology. Conducted at the end of October 2011, we questioned 1,000 male and female respondents aged between 18 and 64 from across the UK, and began by asking them about their use of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+. (YouTube, we reasoned, was more akin to a distribution platform). Allowing for multiple use, Facebook topped the rank with 88 per cent describing themselves as ‘regular users’, followed by Twitter (23.2 per cent), Google+ (21.7 per cent) and LinkedIn (10.4 per cent). All subsequent responses refer to users’ activity on these four social networks.
Entering the social mall
We wanted to know how often, in the last three months, users had engaged with branded content on social media, with ‘engagement’ here defined as ‘liking’, befriending, becoming a fan, following, retweeting, commenting on or otherwise sharing branded content.
Overall, 64 per cent of men and 69 per cent of women questioned said they’d engaged with a brand on Facebook. Eighteen to 34 year-olds topped the league here with an engagement rate of 78.4 per cent, dipping to 59 per cent among 55 to 64s. There was little difference across the social demographic either: ABC1s clocked in at 65.3 per cent; C2DEs were at 68.7 per cent. Unsurprisingly, Facebook’s dominance in this field is supreme. Only 16.8 per cent of respondents said they’d engaged with a brand on Twitter, while Google+ managed 8.8 per cent.
Patterns of use
We were also interested in learning more about detailed patterns of user behavior. Sixteen per cent had only engaged with branded content on Facebook once. Just over 33 per cent of users had engaged between two and five times and just over eight per cent had engaged between 10 and 20 times. Over 26 per cent, however, had engaged with branded content more than 20 times in the last three months, suggesting that the people who engage with your brand on Facebook are probably the people who engage with the most brands overall – including, potentially, your competitors.
Twitter told a slightly different story. There 25.3 per cent had engaged once. That rose to 32.5 per cent who’d engaged between two and five times, but only 17 per cent had engaged more than 20 times. It’s interesting to speculate that these figures represent users’ responses to specific pieces of content – that’s so cool I have to share it – rather than reflecting more habitual patterns of behavior.
Google+, still less than a year old, also showed some interesting results. Overall, significantly more men than women said they engaged with branded content here. But almost 20 per cent more women than men said they’d engaged with a brand 20 times or more.
LinkedIn, of course, is a slightly different proposition from Facebook, Twitter and Google+. The relationships users have there – with other people as well as with brands – are subject to different modes of behavior. Amongst our respondents, almost three times more ABC1s than C2DEs had a presence. Engagement with branded content was lower across the board, but still evident, and once again there was a significant bias in favour of men: roughly twice as many blokes had shared branded content here than women.
Marketers are fully familiar with the move to mobile but our respondents proved overwhelmingly static. Over 80 per cent said that they were most likely to engage with branded content from a laptop or PC. Ten per cent said they were most likely to use a smartphone.
Four per cent said they used Blackberrys and only 2.5 per cent cited iPads. (To complicate matters, though the iPad is classified as a mobile device, according to one survey only 66 per cent of these ever actually leave the house.)
Converting brand agnostics
Next we asked users what had prompted their most recent engagement with a brand on social media. Top of the list were specific discounts or offers (20.6 per cent) followed by competitions (19.6 per cent). Just over 18 per cent of respondents said they'd been influenced by something they'd seen friends share. Just over 17 per cent said they identified with a brand's style or reputation, while 18.2% had been attracted by the existing buzz around a bit of content, leaving 15.5 per cent who engaged because they found the content inherently entertaining or enjoyable and wanted to share it.
One of social’s great strengths, it’s widely assumed, is in the field of sentiment and brand-building through shared conversations; that’s how communities develop. But what if users simply don’t want to be bothered by brands? This was among the findings in a recent TNS Digital Life study, which discovered that 61 per cent of UK users don’t want to engage with brands through social media.
We asked respondents 'if you have not engaged with a brand on any of your social networking sites, what prevented you from doing so?' Allowing for multiple responses, just over 45 per cent of those surveyed said 'I don't like the idea of engaging with brands on social media.' Twenty-nine per cent said there was nothing entertaining enough to be worth sharing, while 24.2 per cent said they hadn't seen anything they considered useful to themselves or those in their networks.
These figures suggest that the nature of content itself is key. Educational, useful and entertaining material created with a close understanding of the context in which it’ll sit is more likely to be shared, to generate buzz and direct warmth towards your brand. Neither the smartest tech nor the juiciest creative are of value unless they’re tailored to the platforms where you want users to engage
Connection times
Next we wanted to know about the breadth and depth of engagement. Asked how many brands they’d engaged with in the last three months, just over 25 per cent said one. Forty-two per cent said between two and four. Nearly half that number said between five and ten. But only 3.6 per cent said they’d engaged with between 10 and 20 brands, and only 3.6 per cent had engaged with more than 20.
Having then made those connections with brands, we asked users how long they tended to maintain these relationships. Just over 19 per cent said they deleted them from their profiles as soon as an offer (or access to an offer) was over. Around 10 per cent kept brands on their profiles for either a week or a month. However, the greatest proportion of users (41.4 per cent) said they never deleted those brand connections, or didn’t know (19.4 per cent). Breaking that down by platform, nearly a third of users said they were currently connected to between two and four brands on Facebook and 25.8 per cent said between five and ten. Twelve per cent said they weren’t connected with any brands. Over on Twitter, once again, it was a very different story. There the overwhelming majority (72.8 per cent) said they didn’t follow any brands.
Clearly, certain sectors and industries lend themselves more effectively to social media than others. In an attempt to understand which sectors attract most attention, we asked respondents the broad question, ‘what sorts of brands are you most likely to engage with on social media.’ Not unsurprisingly, entertainment, food and drink, traveland fashion all fared well, while financial services and property ranked low. It may be no coincidence that marketers in the financial and service sectors, where trust is vital yet hard to realise, have been looking towards social strategies such as gamification to generate warmth and awareness.
From conversation to conversion
Next we wanted to consider the nature and extent of social media’s influence. In the last three months, we asked, have you been influenced by a friend sharing content or otherwise engaging with a brand on social media? This was a simple yes/no question, and 69.3 per cent said ‘yes’, 30.7 per cent said ‘no’. Allowing for multiple responses, when asked how they were influenced, just over 64 per cent said they’d become a friend on Facebook. Nearly a quarter went on to look at a brand’s own website but only 5.5 per cent were prompted to follow a brand on Twitter.
We were also keen to discover more about the nature of users’ involvement in conversations around brands on social media. Though only 10.5 per cent of our respondents said they had participated in social discussion, 53.4 per cent said they’d consider it, and an adamant 36.1 per cent said they would never join a branded community. So what prompted those who did join in to do so?
Over half said the brand invited users to post comments or content as part of their campaign, suggesting that an appeal to users’ creativity (or just giving them an opportunity to self-promote remains a reliable tactic. Thirty-four per cent said they wanted to let the brand know they’d enjoyed their product or service. Surprisingly, however, only 6.7 per cent joined in because their friends were there, and a tiny 1.9 per cent joined the conversation to register a complaint about a product or service.
Part of social’s role in the purchase cycle is as a research platform. Allied to this is the observation that customers are generally moving more slowly down the purchase funnel, taking longer to consider what they’ll buy and researching offers more carefully. So, even if respondents weren’t looking to buy from a brand now, we asked if the decision to engage would make them more likely to buy from that brand in the future, to which a healthy 63.7 per cent said ‘yes’.
Lastly, but most significantly, we come to the issue of conversion. In the last three months, we asked, how often has engaging with a brand on social media been followed by purchasing that brand’s products or services? Sixty-two per cent of respondents had been prompted to reach for their wallets, and nearly a third of those had done so on between two and four occasions. Which leaves 38 per cent of those who’d engaged with a brand in the last three months professing that they never went on to make a purchase.
Conclusions
Our survey indicates that the majority of users are open to engaging with brands on social media but that, just like brands themselves, they want a tangible return from their investment. Clear and specific offers and discounts appear to be more highly valued than cool, creative content – though that clearly has a role - and just because someone says they ‘like’ you, that doesn’t mean they’re ready to buy. The lesson? Give users something useful, and which they can’t get anywhere else.
www.lightspeedresearch.com
Article by Jon Fortgang