06 Oct What are Facebook fans worth in the knitting world?
I came across this article recently about the average value of a Facebook fan: $136.38 and I wondered what that value is for companies in the knitting industry. Are your “fans” 28% more likely to use your yarn brand than non-fans as this article suggests? What about members of your Ravelry group? How loyal are they?
The researchers used five variables to measure the value including product spending, brand loyalty, propensity to recommend, brand affinity, and earned media value. Without rehashing the entire article, (I know you can read it too), I believe this is an important argument as to WHY we need to continue to be engaged with our knitting audiences.
Lest I have been remiss in reminding you of an important point with social media:
“familiarity builds trust and trust earns the sale”
We do know from industry survey’s that Facebook continues to be a hub for knitters and crocheters: The breakdown as follows:
Facebook: 67%
Ravelry: 38%
YouTube 29%
Twitter: 16%
The growth of Facebook continues to amaze me:
- Facebook is the #2 most visited website behind Google
- 50% of users log on daily
- The average user spends 7 hours per month on the site
When I asked Casey for stats on Ravelry, he replied, “In a normal month, we have only 250,000 users who use the site but 6,000,000 visits and 130,000,000 page views.”
OK, so I’ve asked the questions here, but not really answered them. For most companies, the exact ROI from these users is going to remain nebulous because your efforts don’t typically exist in a vacuum right? Buyers are seeing you on ALL the social media channels and maybe even print ads, podcasts, videos etc… so it’s going to be impossible to trace the value of JUST the Facebook fan– because that loyalty has been reinforced by other means.
One of the things I do recommend is to capture buying statistics whenever possible. Take a look at your ordering systems to see how you can integrate a feedback mechanism. Your sales agents and/or your shopping cart forms can help you collect some of this data.
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