Twitter released a study this week, in partnership with The Advertising Research Foundation, FOX and DB5, called “Discovering the Value of Earned Audiences — How Twitter Expressions Activate Consumers.”
The study was conducted to determine how exposure to a brand mention in a Tweet affects the actions of consumers online and offline. To conduct this study, a representative sample of over 12,000 people were recruited including male and female Twitter users, across all age groups and devices
As a result of the study, Twitter arrived at three key findings.
1. Brands are an integral part of regular conversation on Twitter.
According to the study, people don’t just follow brands, they talk about them a lot:
- 80% of the Twitter users surveyed had mentioned a brand in their Tweets during the measurement period of September 2013 through March 2014.
- 50% had mentioned brands in their Tweets 15 times or more over a seven-month period
- 99% of Twitter users in the study were exposed to a brand-related Tweet in the month of January alone.
Twitter provides the following key takeaways from these stats:
Twitter offers brands not only an owned and paid channel to spread their messages at scale but also serves as a powerful platform for earned media. Tactics like adding #hashtags to other media such as TV ads, as well as engaging key audiences in one-to-one interactions can help drive volume and quality of earned media conversation.
2. Consumers take action both online and offline after seeing brand mentions in Tweets.
- 54% of Twitter users reported that they have taken action after seeing brand mentions in Tweets. 23% took action by visiting the brand’s website, while 20% took action by visiting the brand’s Twitter page.
- 18% of study respondents retweet Tweets mentioning brands.
- 19% of Twitter users in the study said they’d consider trying the brand after seeing a Tweet from them.
- 20% conducted a online search for the brand after seeing a brand-related Tweet.
- Younger respondents reported the highest likelihood to take some action after being exposed to brand-related Tweets.
Twitter provides the following key takeaways from these stats:
Since Tweet exposure drives actions across platforms including searching, engagement and purchase, integrate Tweet messages and calls to action with campaigns on other media.
3. The source of the Tweet containing a brand mention affects consumer actions.
- 45% of respondents took brand-related action after seeing Tweets originating from the brand itself, while 63% of respondents took brand-related action after seeing tweets from a non-brand source.
- 79% of respondents who viewed brand-related tweets both from the brand and a non-brand source reported taking some kind of action online or offline.
Twitter provides the following key takeaways from these stats:
Complement earned media with owned and paid messages as the combination tends to drive greater consumer action and maximize return on your efforts.
For more details from this study, including an infographic illustrating the stats, please see this post on Twitter’s blog.
