We have always known it. But now there are two digital studies that confirm how peer pressure influences online buying decisions.
One study was carried out by the Social Computing Group of HP Labs and another was done by ComScore.com’s Social Essential services unit.
The two studies indicate how peer pressure, now delivered through social media channels, can influence buyer behavior. The findings are invaluable for social media marketers, and companies that want to build brands and influence buying behavior.
HP Labs ran the experiment to find out how people’s choices are reversed by the recommendations of others. It showed two photographs to the respondents. One picture was of two babies. The participants were asked to choose the baby that looked cuter.
The second photograph was of two couches or love seats, and the participants were asked to indicate which one they thought was better.
The participants were then asked to make a second choice. This time they were given the preference of others too. The result: “People’s opinions significantly sway people’s own choices.”
According to the researchers, “People are most likely to reverse their choices when facing a moderate number of opposing opinions.”
This was not all. The researchers also found: “The more time that people spent on their choice, the more likely they were to reverse that choice and conform to the opinion of others later on.”
The second study that was done by the ComScore Group aimed to discover the extent to which brand messages spread virally. They tracked the communication messages released by Starbucks, Southwest Airlines and Microsoft Bing on Facebook, and their findings are:
“The reach of these brands’ communications were increased by a factor of between 125% and 169% when Friends were included. In other words, more Friends of Fans actually saw impressions of these brands than did Fans. That’s terrific amplification.”
This was not all. Even more impressive was the appeal of the brands to Fans and Friends of Fans. The study found: “Fans have a much higher likelihood than the average Internet user of visiting the brands’ web site (4.6x higher for Southwest Fans) conducting a search query (1.7x more searches using Bing) or buying the brand (8% higher transactions for Starbucks).”
The two studies clearly establish how important peer pressure is in taking decisions. This is a finding that digital social media marketers can ignore only at their own peril.
