58% of UK Consumers have “Liked” a Brand on Facebook

Over half (58%) of UK consumers have “liked” a brand on Facebook according to new findings from ExactTarget. It’s an improvement of 20% since 2010, but 22% still want marketers to invest in creating a better Facebook experience

There’s somewhat of a peculiar role reversal when it comes to brand messaging on Facebook, though. Marketers are twice more likely (41%) than consumers (21%) to have made a purchase because of a message they’ve seen on the social network.

Email still appears to be the primary form of brand engagement for consumers. ExactTarget’s Marketers from Mars study found that 93% of consumers subscribe to at least one brand’s email, which is a similar figure to 2010.

ExactTarget’s figures give the impression that Twitter isn’t the engagement tool many believe it to be. Only 12% of consumers follow a brand on Twitter, which has risen just 7% since 2010.

Email needs investment

Consumers still feel email requires more investment. When asked where their favourite companies should invest more of their marketing time and resources to improve customer loyalty, 33% opted for email.

A brand’s website followed quite closely on the list of channels requiring investment. Of the survey’s respondents, 24% of consumers thought that more could be done on this front. Comparatively, consumers held Foursquare (1%), Google+ (4%) and Twitter (5%) with a lot less regard.

Vice president of marketing at ExactTarget, Jeff Rohrs, had some advice for marketers: “Avoid the pitfalls of personal biases or becoming a ‘focus group of one’ when creating marketing strategy,” he said. “Consumers are moving from single channel interactions into multi-channel relationships.”