I’ve just been reading The European Social Media and Email Marketing Study from eCircle and I thought I’d share some of the high level observations with you.
The survey was conducted online with just over one thousand participants.
When considering how people use email and social networks, eCircle reported that 73% of respondents have at least one social network account. The study also concluded that Facebook is the social net with the largest multiplier potential – regarding reach, number of friends and usage intensity.
Those seeking information on products and companies via social remains relatively low at just 28% and that seems consistent with other surveys.
Only 32% of those using social networks are fans or follow a company brand and half of those fan/followers are doing so because they are looking for discounts or special offers from the brand. Are you aware of this desire? Are you doing anything to meet it?
When it comes to advertising, not surprisingly, social network users regard their network as a private garden where they control who they communicate with. Again this study supports the conclusions of others surveys which revealed that advertising in email is generally more accepted than on social networks.
The survey found that 95% of people are checking their email at least once per day. One quarter of email users check their email daily from a mobile device. Even the social networkers still see email as relevant with 85% of them using their email accounts for ecommerce.
Share With Your Network (SWYN) doesn’t seem to be catching on too well with Europeans as only 8% of respondents reported using it. Yet when sharing does occur it can have a reasonably wide reach. 43% of social networkers have more than 100 friends or followers and on average, each shared message reaches 77 people.
Here’s the one bit of information that I loved from the high level findings of the survey: 13% of fans and followers of a company or brand want to be called upon to do something. That’s awesome! A pretty good percentage of people actually do want to get involved and participate with you. So, what are you doing to fulfill that desire? Are you allowing your fans and followers to participate and interact with you?