Author(s) : ComScore

comScore – The Power of Like

Facebook is the dominant social networking site with an audience of approximately 160 millions U.S, visitors each month and accounts for 90 percent of all time spent on social networking sites. What is the real importance of Fans and Friends of Fans?

Hypothesis:

1. The social media fever touches every age bracket
2. Facebook is one of the most popular social media
3. Most branded content exposure occurs in the Newsfeed
4. Friends of Fans are more important than Fans themselves
5. Facebook offers global marketing channels for brands

Results:

1. Among Internet users, some 62% use social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace or LinkedIn. Roughly a third use every day, with most of the balance using it at least a few times a week. Based on all Internet users, the average frequency of accessing social networking sites is about 12.4 times per month. Among those who actually access sites, the average frequency is 18 times per month, about 4.5 times a week. There are big variations by age group – with almost all of those aged under 30 (93%) using sites and the majority using every day. Those aged over 40 are substantially less likely to be users overall.

2. As of September 2012, Facebook has over one billion active users, more than half of them using Facebook on a mobile device.

3. Understanding the importance of the newsfeed to the Facebook user experience helps illustrate how and where users are likely to and digest information on the site. This implication is especially important for brands with a presence on Facebook, since the Newsfeed offers a greatest opportunity to reach and engage with current and potential customers. In other words, social media brand content is primarily consumed within the Newsfeed as opposed to on the brands’ fan pages.

4.  Friends of fans represent a substantial potential audience, often well beyond the scale of Fans alone. A Facebook analysis of the top 100 brands pages suggests that for every Fan, there are an additional 34 Friends of Fans that can be reached (with significant variance among brands).
 

5. It is also important for many brands to take a more global perspective while most campaign measurement and evaluation occurs at a local level. Facebook reached 714 million worldwide unique visitors in May. The chart below illustrate how brands may be reaching Fans across the world with brand impressions on Facebook for Starbucks, Southwest and Bing

Conclusion:

As a conclusion, brand fan pages represent a new form of marketing strategy that creates potential clients. Moreover, not only Fans are important in the world of Facebook, but also Friends of Fans who more than important key consumer. Friends of Fans audience may be important in helping brands to achieve their marketing goals on Facebook. What about Fan pages which don’t manage to take off their page? A new way of getting fans is to BUY fans! Is that new way an efficient springboard?