November 10, 2011
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Think the only reason people would follow your company on Twitter is for a flash sale or other bargain? Not so, says a new study.
People follow your company on Twitter because they're very loyal current customers, says the survey, conducted online by e-mail marketing service Constant Contact and market research firm Chadwick Martin Bailey. First, some numbers: The fraction of the 21 million U.S. Twitter users who actually follow companies followed just a select few. But their top reason for doing so–cited by 64 percent–was that they were already a customer. That was significantly ahead of the 48 percent who followed only for discounts and deals.
About a fifth of U.S. Twitter users use the micro-blogging service to follow brands. Of that number, 79 percent follow fewer than 10 brands, with more than a third (36 percent) following just one or two companies and 28 percent following three or four. Just 21 percent followed 10 or more companies. (Expect more people to follow more companies in the future: A third of users said they were interacting with brands on Twitter more now than they were last year. And nearly half said they'd been tweeting less than a year, anyway.)
Just because Twitter followers tend to be loyal customers already doesn't mean it isn't worth your effort to acquire more followers, and to maintain them. Half of those who followed brands on Twitter said that after following a company's 140-character-missives they were more likely to buy from the firm. (Among men, the number was slightly higher: 55 percent.)
Other findings: Sixty percent of brand followers are more likely to recommend you to friends after following you on Twitter. (Twitter users over age 35 actually were more likely to recommend than those under age 35.) And 75 percent have never un-followed a company.
And just because users are not Tweeting about you doesn't mean they aren't paying attention to you: Most (84 percent) said they were more likely to read your tweets than actually to throw your name into the virtual conversation. And users have high expectations: Two-thirds said they expected unique content from brands they bothered to follow.
So who is following companies on Twitter? Users under age 35 are more likely to do so than older users. Again, this is expected to change with time: A quarter of Twitter users age 50 or over have been using the service for less than a month.
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