Millennials’ social media activity is linked to higher purchase activity in key categories, according to a new study by ShareThis.
ShareThis tracked the online browsing and sharing habits of 6.7 million Canadians 18-34. And in partnership with Datalogix, ShareThis tracked 1.2 million offline purchasers through database matching to understand if someone who is sharing about a product will actually but it.
In the electronics category, millennials are 2.4 times more likely than the general population to purchase products they share online. This is followed by food and drink (2.1), household supplies (1.8) and personal care (1.7).
“This actually puts a value to brands’ social strategies,” said Chloe Efthyvoulos, product specialist, data solutions at Olive Media, which partnered with ShareThis on the study. “It’s intuitive for brands to think, ‘my audience is social, I want to tap into what they’re doing,’ but [this study shows] there is a return on brand’s investments into the social landscape.”
In the electronics category, the top conversations were about cameras and photos, followed by phones, audio, computers, software, TV and video. The bulk of the conversations happened on Facebook (43%), followed by Twitter (28%), Reddit (16%) and Pinterest (7%).
“It’s a great story for camera [brands],” said Jaime Greenwald, audience product manager at Olive Media. “If you’re a Canon or a Nikon, that’s a phenomenal thing to say, that we want to tap into people who are sharing about cameras and photos and they’re 2.4 times more likely to go out and purchase one.”
The study also found millennials share online content to their social networks 3.1 times more than the general population. And they click on content shared by their peers two times more than the average.
“Obviously they are more social… but the fact that they’re engaging more with the content that they’ve received shows how strong and powerful peer-to-peer interaction is,” said Efthyvoulos.
In terms of where the sharing is happening, the study found millennials’ social channels are more diverse than the general population. Only 62% of millennials use Facebook compared to 81% of the general population; 23% use Twitter compared to 6% of the general population; and 4% use Reddit compared to 3% of the general population.
Millennials also socialize more often on the go: 46% share on their smartphones compared to 11% of the general population. They’re also more likely to share content relating to business, finance, jobs and politics. “They’re actually spending time with the more mature conversations that we might not have thought prior,” said Efthyvoulos.
