I’ve noticed lately that my buying behavior has been switching to brands who are on social media and, more importantly, brands who would engage with me (more on that soon). I wanted to see if I was an oddity or a norm here.

So, like anybody else would on a Sunday I created a 30 second survey on Google Docs and Tweeted. This is by no means a comprehensive survey but a quick and dirty fact finding mission. As many of the respondents (around 65%) located the survey on Twitter you can say that the pool is somewhat biased when comparing channels. For those wanting real specifics, n=40 (with two disqualified for incomplete information, not bad for an hour on Sunday afternoon). Read into the results as you wish, my followers helped me collect the data so it is only fair I share it.

70% of respondents indicated that a companies social media account influences their purchase decisions. All users who responded to this survey are clearly social media savvy (and thus the results are only applicable to a similar crowd) but it does demonstrate that people on these channels expect representation from businesses.

60% of all respondents indicated social media as part of their purchase criteria (the difference here being that a company must be on social media to make a purchase) and that they have purchased from a company because they were active on social media where competitors were not. Again, this applies only to a social media crowd but shows that non-savvy small businesses are likely losing sales for not being present.

Respondents were then asked to specify the most important social media channel when investigating purchase options / companies. Twitter was considered the most important channel, perhaps due to ease of access and simplicity. Company blogs came in last; my best guess on this one is that company blogs are rarely conversations whereas Facebook Pages and Twitter profiles are often very conversation heavy.

Respondents were then asked to rank important factors when evaluating a channel; specifically, when two products / companies maintain social media channels and the user is making decisions. The rate of activity and level of interaction came in at number 1 which, as mentioned earlier, may be why Twitter and Facebook were considered more important than blogs.

Finally, and perhaps most surprisingly, 30% of respondents indicated they regularly pay a higher price for products active on social media over competitors who are not. We already knew social media was an important evaluation tool but this number was somewhat surprising to me.

Read into the facts as you will. As always I love the e-mail, Twitter and comment feedback.

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