Survey reveals that Social Networks play a limited role in the customer's decision making process in Holland

I came across a very interesting study just conducted by Fleishman-Hillard on December 2010 titled “The Digital Influence Index Study: ‘Understanding the Role of the Internet in the Lives of Consumers in the Netherlands”. The conclusions of the study:

1: The Internet is by far the most influential medium for Dutch consumers. Influence is defined as a combination of the time consumers spend on a medium and the relative importance they attach to it in their daily lives.
2: The internet is used mainly as a means to research decisions and to find supporting evidence for the decisions made. Search engines are key in the decision making process while social networks are, as of yet, hardly used. In particular when it comes to making decisions regarding durable goods and services, the Internet is viewed as the most important information source.
3: A particular remarkable conclusion is the marginal role social networks apparently play in decision making processes. The strength of social networks seems to be in emotional brand bonding rather than giving clear advice aimed at purchase decisions.
4: In general, the Dutch trust the information available on the Internet, in particular information provided by the government. The extensive amount of information available online makes it easier to learn quickly and makes it possible to make well-balanced decisions.
5: When seeking advice from others, the Dutch place a high value on the advice of friends, family and colleagues. Remarkably the majority of the respondents state that they only partly trust advice from strangers while conceding that the usefulness thereof is most likely high. The trustworthiness of content produced by sponsored or paid bloggers is extremely low.
6: Dutch Consumers are very familiar with micro blogs such as Twitter. In general the opinion is that people share too much uninteresting personal information. Consumers are also very aware of the possible implications of sharing personal information which could potentially harm their career.
7: Companies who make use of micro blogs to listen and anticipate consumers interests are appreciated more than those that don’t. Having a company keep their own micro blog is seen as less relevant. (Source: Fleishman-Hillard)

From all these findings nr 3 is particularly interesting. Social Networks play a marginal role in decision making processes. Attention here because they talk about Social Networks and not about Social Media. Is there a difference between Social Media and Social Networks? Indeed a big one since Social Networks are only one of the (five according to me) Social Media types. Since there are four more other Social Media categories I can imagine that all these together play indeed an important role in this process. This is evident if we look to conclusion nr 1 in combination with nr 5. Advice from friends, family and colleagues can be verbal or provided through social networking; In this point the study does not make any distinction and probably consumers do not see the online conversation with friends and family as social networking. No one can be sure and more research is necessary in this point. Regarding the advice from strangers this is by all means provided online: in online communities, online forums and influential blogs. There is also a discrepancy here namely that while in general consumers say that they do not trust strangers they recognize that the usefulness of strangers advice is most likely high. This means to me that in the end the social media and the information provided online plays a critical role in the consumer’s decision making process today (see also conclusion 1). The study reveals also interesting facts on media consumption trends in Holland and several other countries, underlying the need for more serious research in this area. The study also confirms something I wrote some time ago warning about excessive euphoria regarding the Social Media phenomenon.

Lost productivity on Social Networking

I was always sure that the obsession (or maybe the addiction) of some people with their online social networks is costing business money and productivity. How much this cost is was not sure until MyJobGroup publissed the results of a UK survey concluding that "Social Media Costing UK Economy up to £14billion in Lost Work Time". Interesting findings bringing once more the often discussed in this blog subject of organizational guidelines for the use of the Internet during work time (but also outside work time if ) to the attention of businesses.

Interesting news for SMEs: Social Networking is a successful strategy

According to a just published study of Regus Media Center the adoption of social networking as business strategy by SMEs is growing: the main findings of the study:

•Social Networks are now actively used by between half and three quarters of companies worldwide for various networking functions


• However, 40% of companies globally have successfully used social networks to find new customers, scotching the comments of pundits who deny that such networks produce hard business outcomes

• The importance of these networks to marketing activities is witnessed by the fact that 27% of firms globally actively devote marketing budget to social networking activity in order to reach and retain existing customers

• Social networks are mainly used by business people to stay in touch with business contacts (58%), getting together with special interest groups (54%), finding out useful business information (54%), and organising/connecting/managing customer groups (51%)

• Surprisingly few business people (22%) have used business social networks to find a new job

• A hardcore of sceptics exists (34%) who do not believe business social networks will ever be a significant method of reaching customers and prospects, although this proportion may diminish as examples of successful practice are more widely publicised

• There is only a mild differential between the small, medium and large company usage of business social networks, revealing that usage patterns are largely company size neutral

• Of the specific industries surveyed, ICT, Retail, Media & Marketing and Consultancy were above average in their use of business social networks. Manufacturing, Financial Services and Healthcare were below average
Source: Regus Media Center https://www.regus.presscentre.com/Resource-Library/Social-Media-1cf.aspx

Quitting FACEBOOK: The new hype?

Last week I quitted my FACEBOOK account without much pain since I never really liked it (see previous post). But I am not the only one: It seems that the arrogant attitude of Mark Zuckerberg starts paying off and massive exodus from FACEBOOK accounts is going on for some days now. Everywhere you read about closures of accounts , the first online actions like Quit Facebook Day are already a fact and I have the feeling that FACEBOOK will fell also victim of blog swarms and viral actions that have been also main contributors to its success.
Will FACEBOOK disappear from the face of the web in the zenith of its success? Difficult to make such a prediction considering the millions of users addicted to it. Whether Facebook will follow the fait of Second Life will depend on the reaction of the user and the success of new initiatives in the social networking domain like DIASPORA or others to come with a reliable alternative meeting the wishes of users regarding privacy and respect.

Our paper is accepted in the EMAC 2010 conference

I just received the news that the paper we submitted * to the 39th European Marketing Academy (EMAC) Conference has been accepted. The paper is titled "ADOPTION OF SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES BY DUTCH USERS" and is about the factors influencing adoption of the SNS by the public on the basis of a Technology adoption Model (TAM) approach. The study was country-wide and has been also done in Spain so that we can make cross-cultural comparisons.
This is the first article from this study, some more aricles will hopefully follow.  For those interested the article will be available online right after the conference in this blog.

*Co-authors of this article are my Spanish colleagues Carlota Romero, Maria del Carmen Alarcón-del Amo and Miguel Ángel Gómez-Borja, all from the University of Castilla-La Mancha