Over a third of social media users have bought products recommended by their Facebook friends, according to a new poll.
A survey conducted by Sociable Labs has indicated that three quarters of regular online shoppers click on products that have been ‘Liked’ by their Facebook contacts and around half of these go on to buy them.
These statistics show exactly how valuable social media marketing can be to a company that does it properly.
Reporting on the statistics for dailyfinance.com, financial journalist Ross Kenneth Urken was far from surprised to hear of the positive influence that social media ‘likes’ had on online shoppers.
He said: “A positive reaction to a product or a deal from a social media friend gives it legitimacy. Add a dash of peer pressure, a sense of immediacy, and the Internet’s ease of transaction, and it’s obvious why these purchases are happening more commonly. Facebook is affecting your spending habits more than you may even realise.”
According to dailymail.co.uk, the process of consumers becoming attracted to products based on the opinions of their online friends has been dubbed ‘social proofing’ by industry experts.
The report suggested that 81 per cent of online shoppers like to share the products they desire with social media contacts.
