A new study by Kantar Media Compete shows that tweets has much higher conversion ratio than Facebook Updates. The numbers come from the quarterly “Online Shopper Intelligence Study” which looks at cross-channel shopping behaviour. The survey was given to 2,574 online purchasers who shopped between July 14 and August 8, 2011.
The research showed that 35% of respondents said that Twitter Feeds had more influence on their purchasing decision, whereas only 23.5% shared similar sentiment about Facebook. The study also found that email is going strong. 89% of respondents said they click through to a retail site. Retail text messaging though, is barely on the radar.
What could be the reason?
Though Facebook has 500+ million user bases, it doesn’t necessary mean that you have access to all of their updates. But in case of Twitter, a single user has access to all the million users, and has ability to communicate with them. This adds tremendous value to the overall content being shared in Twitter. The variety of information flowing in Twitter and Emails are much wide varied than in Facebook.
Though BREAKING news get visibility in both Facebook and Twitter, the variety of information is always found in Twitter and not in Facebook (which usually consists of on average 400 of you close associations).
The other important factor to understand is the reason why people follow Twitter Feeds, Email Newsletters and Facebook updates. In case of Twitter and Email, people are genuinely interested in subscribing to the information and updates to latest offering.
But in case of Facebook, any kinds of offers or deals come in a way between the conversations with friends. People do not visit Facebook to make any purchase decision but instead to communicate with friends and occasionally get tips or information from their friends.
As a result, Twitter and Email is best suited for sending marketing materials but Facebook can be used to create more buzz, engagement and conversation.
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