Here’s another study that indicates consumers use social networks to track brand information.
This chart and information is from an article on MarketingCharts.com:
44% of Americans agree that social networking keeps them in the know about brands and products, according to the latest survey data released by Ipsos OTX. Still, Americans are 20% less likely on average to use social networks to keep updated than consumers in other countries: across the 24 markets tracked, 55% of respondents said they use social networks in this way. Within the US, some of the usual demographic trends seen in other social networking behavior apply.
Namely, women are more likely than men to leverage social networks for brand updates (by 20% in this case; 48% vs. 40%), and the 18-34 group is far more likely to do so than the 55+ crowd (63% vs. 27%). Taken alone, that figure for 18-34-year-olds is quite impressive in itself – almost two-thirds of young Americans keep updated on brands via social networking.
Providing your retailers with easy-to-post social content is a good idea, especially when you consider that social media is free of publication costs.