Considering that a new study about the effectiveness of brand tweets was sponsored by Twitter it is probably not too surprising that they found the more tweets and retweets a brand gets the more likely Twitterers will take action.
The study was commissioned to find out how TV and brand-related Tweets affect consumer behavior. Twitter, in partnership with The Advertising Research Foundation, FOX and DB5, sampled over 12,000 male and female Twitter users across all age groups and devices, including mobile and desktop. They contacted people who had a ‘primetime presence’ on Twitter (people who were logged into Twitter during primetime TV hours) and asked them a few simple questions. The results were also compared to Twitters own data.
The study was designed to discover how exposure to a brand mention in a Tweet affects the actions of consumers online and offline. What they found was people who read brand-related tweets from multiple sources were strongly influenced to take some sort of action, whether it was visiting the company’s website or their Twitter page or searching for more information about the company or product.
“We found that over half of Twitter users reported that they have taken action after seeing brand mentions in Tweets (54%). These consumers take action on Twitter and beyond Twitter. The top two actions people took: visiting the brand’s website (23%) and visiting the brand’s Twitter page (20%). Brand Tweet exposure also drives online search for the brand (20%) as well as brand consideration with 19% of Twitter users in the study saying they’d consider trying the brand. Tweets that mention a brand also frequently spark earned media: 18% of study respondents retweet Tweets mentioning brands.”
“Our research revealed all age groups take action after exposure to brand-related Tweets, with a range from 41% – 59%. However, younger respondents reported the highest likelihood to take some action, at 56% for 18-24 years olds and 59% for 13-17 years olds (vs. 54% average across all ages).”
And it turns out that people tweet about specific brands quite a bit.
“…we also found that people don’t just follow brands; they talk about them…a lot. In fact, 80% of the Twitter users we surveyed had mentioned a brand in their Tweets during the measurement period of September 2013 through March 2014.
“Behavioral data showed that among this group of Twitter users, 50% had mentioned brands in their Tweets 15 times or more over a seven-month period. With so many people following and mentioning brands, it’s not surprising that a whopping 99% of Twitter users in the study were exposed to a brand-related Tweet in the month of January alone.”
The study also found that the sources of the Tweets also affect how people react.
“We found that both Tweets from brands and Tweets from non-brand sources successfully drive action among consumers (45% and 63% respectively), but combining the two is ultimately more powerful. In fact, 79% of those who recall seeing Tweets from both the brand itself and Twitter users tweeting about brands have taken some brand action online or offline.”
It’s an interesting bit of research, even it should be taken with a grain of salt. You can check out the Twitter blog post about the study (and the complete infographic) here.
