The Single Most Powerful Aspect of Twitter And It’s Value To You
Anyone in the world of Marketing will tell you that Word-of-Mouth is the purest and surest activity for creating brand and loyalty. How powerful can that be using social media?
- Research shows that we (you, me and others just like us) place more value in the opinions of our friends and family. In a study conducted by social networking site myYearbook, 81% of those responding said they received advice from friends and followers relating to a product purchase through a social site and 74% of those receiving that advice found it to be influential in their buying decisions. (Click Z, January 2010).
- Users put great trust in their social networks. One-half of the respondents to a survey conducted by Beresford said they considered information shared on their networks when making a decision and the proportion was higher among users between 18 and 24 at 65%. (eMarketer, October 2009)
- Twitter, blogs, Facebook and customer reviews are considered the most effective tactics for mobilizing consumers to talk up product online. (eTailing survey of 117 companies, September 2009)
- Consumers trust friends above experts when it comes to product recommendations (65% trust friends, 27% trust experts and amazingly, 8% trust celebrities). (Yankelovich)
- Online social network users were three times more likely to trust their peers’ opinions over advertising when making purchase decisions. (“Social Networking Sites: Defining Advertising Opportunities in a Competitive Landscape,” JupiterResearch, March 2007)
Twitter is a Definite Influence
Twitter has a huge influence on the online world. There are estimates that Twitter has around 75 million users and continues to grow. Now certainly some of these accounts are stagnant with no activity for months and months but no other social network has more viral capabilities than Twitter with the powerful “Retweet” feature. Think about how fast the news about the earthquake in Haiti traveled because of Twitter. Or even Tiger Wood’s wreck that snowballed into an even bigger story of his infidelities. Celebrities are even using Twitter to announce their breakup like Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy (is he nuts?).