Overview: What Can Facebook Do For Me? - Benchmarks and Best Practices from Brand Leaders

Background

If your company is going social, there is no question, Facebook is the place to start. Facebook touts more than 800 million active users worldwide and estimates over $4 billion in revenue for 2011. This is a dramatic shift from just three years ago when MySpace reigned the social stratosphere. Facebook has grown over 400% since 2008 and it continues to grow exponentially. Today, 87% of online consumers say they currently use a social site, up from 68% in 2008. 94% of these consumers have used Facebook. Among active Facebook users, each has an average of 130 friends and is connected to 80 Facebook community pages, groups and/or events. With this magnitude of consumer engagement, businesses are aligning with Facebook in order to tap into this rich resource of social activity. So, what can Facebook do for Me? eVŌC Insights conducted a comprehensive social media benchmarking study to help marketers leverage Facebook to engage consumers, build brand loyalty, and effectively create social ambassadors who will promote their brands online and offline. This report tracks the performance of the social media industry from 2008 to 2011 and provides best practices for marketers interested in making social media a successful component of their brand strategy.

Highlights

87% of U.S. consumers currently use a social networking site, up from 68% in 2008
66% are looking for special offers and coupons on Facebook
59% of users have "Liked" a Facebook page in the past 6 months
54% are 'somewhat' or 'much' more likely to purchase from a brand they "Liked"
Most popular "Liked" pages are Food Brands, TV Shows, Music, Movies, Clothing
70% of ages 40+ like Food Brands; 74% of Teens like Movies, Music, and TV
More than 50% of users are accessing social networking via mobile device
Groupon is a rising star in the social ethos; 30% of U.S. consumers use Groupon
Screenshots from top Facebook liked pages in Media, CPG and Retail (Clothing)
Best practices for designing and driving loyalty for Facebook brand pages

Objectives

The findings from this research benchmark the performance of the social media industry from 2008 to 2011 and address the following objectives:

Track awareness, usage, and perception of social websites and mobile apps
Identify primary reasons for usage of social websites and mobile apps today
Determine perceived strengths, weaknesses, and unmet needs from social media
Identify what role companies / brands play in the social arena
Determine how brands can best utilize social media to engage consumers
Discover how brands can leverage social media to develop brand ambassadors

This Social Media report addresses these goals in detail and identifies best practices for companies interested in harnessing this evolving space.

Methodology

For this study, eVŌC surveyed 400+ U.S. online consumers in September 2011, who are all currently using or interested in using social networking websites. This data is benchmarked against the same set of demographics and metrics collected from our Social Networking survey of 400 U.S. online consumers conducted in Mach 2008.

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