With the holiday season upon us, companies and social media marketers are wondering just how influential social media is on consumers during this season. Well, a new study conducted by Offerpop, a third party contesting app, and Liel Leibovitz, Assistant Professor at NYU Steinhardt joined forces to answer this question. The study looked at consumers and how they use social media to help plan their holiday shopping. And what they found was pretty amazing: consumers rely heavily on social media to make decisions about their holiday purchases. What’s even more amazing, is that social media outranked more traditional marketing mediums (newspaper and tv) in influencing consumers decisions.
Here are some more details about key findings from the study:
- The overwhelming majority of respondents, 88 percent, replied that they use social media to communicate with companies, with 67 percent replying that they did so sometimes and 21 percent replying that they did so always.
- When asked about their intent to use social media platforms to inform their holiday shopping this year as compared to last year, the overwhelming majority reported that they’d use social media either the same or more heavily, with 54 percent replying the same, and 37 percent replying more heavily.
- When asked, 90 percent of respondents said that following a brand on social media made them either somewhat likely (63 percent) or very likely (27 percent) to consider the brand when planning their holiday shopping list.
- When asked if they’re likely to turn to social media before buying something to read reviews or ask for opinions, nearly all respondents, across all demographic categories, replied that they were either somewhat likely (61 percent) or very likely (36 percent).
To read the full study click here.