The largest sticking point for companies who are hesitating over getting into social media is the lack of statistical evidence that shows that marketing with social media isn’t simply flushing dollars. This is a natural reason for some companies to move slowly, to try to see if the first few seals will waddle back out of the orca-infested waters of Facebook. Well, you should be aware that there IS already some statistical support available.
One of my favorite resources, if you haven’t found them yet, is emarketer.com. I signed up for their daily newsletter a while ago, and was happy to find that they regularly dispense a good quantity of quotable metrics on social media. While most of it isn’t Facebook fan page-specific, you can still find many nuggets of pure, sweet relevance among the more general information.
A few questions that they can answer for you right now:
Are social media users receptive enough to justify a market presence via fan page? Yes. 52% of social media users are fans or followers of a company or brand. Though this isn’t Facebook-specific, you should be able to say that at least half of Facebook’s 250+ million users are actively participating in fan page marketing. http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007252
Are other companies getting into it? Yes. 59% of companies are currently using social media as a marketing vehicle. Only 13% don’t plan to, ever – it will be interesting to see how that number changes over the next year or two. http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007246
You said that lack of statistics is the largest stalling agent for social media-inhibited companies? Kind of. It’s the biggest, but it’s not alone – the lack of trained social media professionals is a close runner-up. http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007063
Apparently, our metaphorical seals don’t just need to see that the water’s safe before they dive in – they also need to know how to swim. And, at risk of taking it too far: They ought to know that fan pages are like water wings for marketers…
