Online social media, meaning social networking and all 2.0 style platforms following the principles of the architecture of participation are growing rapidly and get a ton of interest across industries. The understanding is, that these compelling interaction communities are the new access to consumer behavior and thus need to be leveraged for marketing and sales to outperform the competition. Harris Interactive has done a poll earlier this month to address the question whether Online Social Media really leverage behavior or they just act as communication enablers:
When it comes to making purchase decisions, consumers obtain information using a mixture of old media and new media and those that would constitute “push” (advertising and websites) and “pull” (information from neutral, informal communication).
These are some of the results of The Harris Poll of 2,355 U.S. adults surveyed online between March 9 and 16, 2009 by Harris Interactive.
The most frequently identified methods of gathering information were:
- Using a company website (36%),
- Face-to-face with a salesperson or other company representative (22%), and
- Face-to-face with a person not associated with the company (21%).
Other frequently mentioned methods or sources were:
- Advertising in print media (19%),
- Independent websites that have reviews (19%),
- Phone call to the company (16%), and
- Public or private social networking sites (4%).
See the report here: http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/pubs/Harris_Poll_2009_06_15.pdf
The poll results are really quite interesting. But I am missing the demand and lead generation role of Online Social Media and their impact on the overall marketing and sales funnel. Obviously people do not go on Facebook to find the right brand to choose for their new car, but I’m quite sure that conversations on social media sites generate a lot of demand and leads that then later enter into the controlled and monitored sales process through one of the above mentioned channels.
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As the designer and analyst of the Harris Poll offline/online WOM impact research, I can comment on your demand and lead generation statement. What our research, and several other studies, has determined, is that apart from web sites, social media has relatively little dirct impact on customer product/service purchase decision-making. Social scientists identify the vast amount of such online communication, as ‘phatic’, or purely personal interchange. Social media are tremendously important now, and will continue to grow exponentially; however, our research suggests the need for some balanced thinking by marketers here.
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