ARMED TO THE TEETH WITH KNOWLEDGE, INSIDE THE MIND OF THE SOCIAL CONSUMER

Drinking my morning coffee & browsing through today’s hot topics on Mashable, I came across this interesting infographic.  As I was reading through I stopped to think, when was the last time I had a true ‘impulse buy’, completely in the dark pre-purchase about reviews, ratings, etc.  Now to be honest, I actually couldn’t remember.  I then started thinking about how amazingly connected we are with the products/services we buy, and the brands that represent them.  Today’s consumers are armed to the teeth with knowledge on what they are about to purchase, mitigating the chance of buyers remorse more than ever before.

Why is this?  We have every resource imaginable available to us to find out what we need to know for just about everything.  From coffee to cars… a quick search on yelp, a look at an amazon review, or even a visit to a brand’s facebook page, the social consumer is keen on almost every purchase they make thanks to this new interconnected social purchasing funnel.

Great Chat with Facebook’s Own David Baser, on the New Facebook Page Insights

Clickz.com sat down recently with Facebook’s David Baser to discuss the recent overhaul of Facebook Page Insights.  For anyone who is familiar with the new metrics, it is pretty clear that the new insights are going effect all brands, regardless of their size.  Ultimately, it seems that Facebook is trying to bring in a new era, where quality engagement will define a brand page’s success, not just their amount of ‘likes’.  Here are some of the highlights we pulled from their conversation…

The top 10 brands on facebook: How many people are actually talking about them?

Big brands on Facebook have done a good job building a big number, their Fan count. But brand communities are reaching a new level of maturity, it’s not enough to build a big number, it’s important what you do with them, and the value you provide for them. Fostering this relationship and driving valuable engagement after they join your community, what we’re terming Afterlike Marketing is becoming the primary focus of forward thinking social brands, and Facebook’s new and very public “People Talking About” metric paints a sharp picture of the opportunity being left on the table. With the ten largest brand communities on Facebook ranging from 1.9% of their fans engaging as a high point, to an almost invisible .2 percent, we think a disruptive shift in how brands interact with their fans is not far behind.