What Your Followers Want

January 27, 2010

Companies “brag” all the time about the number of followers or friends that they have on Facebook or Twitter. But what motivates someone to friend or follow a company?

A December 2009 survey from MarketingSherpa of 500 social network users showed that the top motivation of those who friended or followed a brand online was to learn about specials and sales, followed closely by learning about new products, features or services.

This data would seem to indicate that Facebook and Twitter is good for reaching people who already have an existing relationship with you, but not as good at attracting new customers.

The MarketingSherpa survey confirmed a study by Razorfish last fall which found that exclusive deals and offers was the #1 reason that users followed brands on Twitter.