According to Nielsen research, recommendations from friends remain the most credible form of advertising among consumers (source: https://www.nielsen.com/eu/en/press-releases/2015/recommendations-from-friends-remain-most-credible-form-of-advertising/).
When friends recommend or suggest something we tend to listen because of trust. We are also far more likely to respond to their suggestions on every day decisions like where to eat or what movie to watch.
In a study by the Bottom Line they found when choosing a new restaurant and given the choice of whose advice to listen to between a friend and expert, 88.34% chose a friend.
This favouring of friends over experts were consistent among other decisions too. For example, when choosing a holiday destination – 78.5% would choose a friends recommendation over an experts.
Friends Vs. Influencers
Influencer marketing is red hot right now as it allows businesses and brands to connect with an audience in a more intimate way to regular advertising. It is a powerful way of engaging and influencing buying decisions.
Friend to friend marketing however has even more connection and trust in the dialogues and therefore carries far more influence.
YouAreMIA.com allows businesses and brands to connect with with specific demographics and become part of this friend to friend recommendations. Groups can be targeted by age, gender, interests and locations.
Once the business has identified who they want to share their messages and campaigns, these social media users are then invited to collaborate.
To collaborate they share these campaign on their social media for their friends to read.
Their friends respond favourably to these posts as they have been shared and effectively endorsed by their friend.
It becomes an incredibly powerful interaction and YouAreMIA.com then shares the results – such as click rates – to the business upon completion of the campaign
Whereas an Advert communication is disrupting what we do, a friend conversation isn’t
The fundamental shift in creating an advertising message with influence to one that is lacking, is the platform it comes from.
When a friend suggests something, such as recommending a restaurant or business on their social media, we listen and take note. We want to read what our friends post after all – it’s why we look on our social feeds!
When it’s a web banner or pop-up, we know we are being sold too and so there is a tendency to switch off and ignore the message.
The challenge for a business wanting to promote itself is being able to get the connection and engagement with its customer. Sure you need a good hook and message, but you also need the will of the recipient that they will read it!
This is why collaborating with relevant social media users to your business is such a powerful opportunity to tap into.
Their friends want to read their posts, and now that can include your campaign messages too!
For more information on how YouAreMIA can help, visit their website: https://www.youaremia.com/ .
