Social Media Users Take Advantage Of Promotions More Often

About one in eight people active on social networking sites take advantage of coupons, vouchers and discounts on a regular basis whilst shopping; an interesting point from the Retail Times, which outlined the results of a new survey.

By comparison, just 69% of consumers who haven’t used social media in the past 30 days would be on the lookout for promotions, research from GfK, presented at the Institute of Promotional Marketing’s (IPM) Social Marketing Conference, showed.

On a global scale, the UK occupies the fifth place for the overall usage of coupons (77%), with the US ranking first with 85%. When taking into account coupon usage by social media users, the UK climbs to the third spot behind the US and Taiwan.

The research further revealed that about a quarter of UK users of social networking sites who make use of promotional offers during their shopping trips found them on a social media channel and another 17% used promotions offered by brands that they follow online. Another 8% of consumers took advantage of a deal shared by a friend and 4% decided to use an offer liked or commented on by someone on their friends’ list.

Promotional food and drink products are the type of deals a conventional user of vouchers and coupons would choose to make use of. The most preferred promotions among social media users are health and beauty products and vouchers for attractions and leisure activities.

The results from the survey complement GfK’s view that social media has the power to influence consumer behaviour just like technology, which acts as a catalyst and brings new trends to the market, Richard Bussy, digital consultant in GfK’s Digital Market Intelligence team, commented.