Social media content ‘influences purchases’ (Infographic)

Social shopping is on the rise, with many consumers being influenced by product images, friend recommendations, trends and fan page offers, according to a new study.

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The study and infographic from media agency MPG Media Contacts and Lightspeed Research shows that while there is a rising demand for social content, there is a lack of social media included on ecommerce sites.
The results of the survey indicates that consumers use social media as both recommendations and inspiration when shopping online, but are reluctant to use links from social sites to buy.
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The research shows that 9 out of 10 of the online population have purchased online in the past six months but that three out of four people say that they have never followed a link from Facebook to make a purchase.
A third (rising to 42% for 18-34s) say their purchase decision has been influenced by social media with almost 47% of those who use social media sites for inspiration being inspired by images, 46% taking recommendations from friends and 38% looking at brand pages on social networks. 4 in 10 also said they ask for opinions on their purchases on social media sites.
It also points to the fall in the importance of blogs as places where shoppers get recommendations. Instead people look to friends’ recommendations and visuals, which is why Pinterest is so retail friendly.
On a scale of 1 to 7 (seven being the lowest) blogger opinions were marked at 5, while photos were scored at 3.5 and posts from friends being 3.6.
When asked whether they thought social media was changing shopping 35% agreed that it was.
View the infographic below:
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Source: MPG Media Contacts

11 Comments

  1. Yet more questionable ‘research’ based stats on social media.
    A very different picture emerges from The British Population Survey. Two of the things monitored by this monthly tracking study are the influence of social media on purchase decisions (along with a range of other influences) and the difference in attitudes to things like social media between people who respond to on line surveys and people who don’t.
    Basically the findings suggest that recommendations from social media ‘friends’ are one tenth as likely to be influential as recommendations from ‘real’ friends and relatives. There is, however, far less of a difference if you just look at people who respond to on line surveys.
    Not that social media is not important, just that its importance varies vastly dependant on the audience.
    Marketers need to understand far more about this and appreciate that not everyone is as tied to their iPads as they are.

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