Three-quarters of Facebook fans have signed up with pages after invitations or ads from brands

Research on social media users who follow brands has shown marketers the importance of offering deals and discounts on Facebook fan pages. Often times Facebook users become fans because they are prompted to “like” a brand due to some form of outreach.

Three-quarters of Facebook users worldwide who had “liked” a brand told DDB Worldwide and Opinionway Research in September 2010 that they had done so because of an invitation or advertising from the brand they followed. More than half had also followed a brand based on an invitation from a friend.

Only about half of all Facebook brand fans ended up following brands after their own research, making action by marketers critical.

Former fans reported unsubscribing from a Facebook page due to decreased interest in the brand. Unsubscribers also had complaints regarding information on the fan page; nearly half of the respondents were turned off by too many daily posts or posts containing uninteresting information.

“Unsubscribers, at 36%, are something to watch out for. And though the majority of fans now unsubscribe by deleting a brand from their friends list, brands, when trying to measure the value of their community, are going to need to be more mindful of those who just hide the brand’s message in their newsfeed,” said Catherine Lautier, director of business intelligence at DDB.

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