Friending Brands on Facebook: Young People Say No Thanks

As Facebook contemplates ways to monetize its vast reach, conflicting data continue to emerge about how receptive the market may be to such initiatives. The Faceboook context is friendly rather than commercial, but in an avowedly business-oriented society, such chasms can be readily bridged. This study, from Forrester, suggests that young people are not amenable to friending or being friended by brands. However, other studies have shown that when specific brands put themselves up, the response can be quite enthusiastic. Business people will have to monitor developments until a firm trend emerges one way or the other. For the time being, it appears that testing, scrupulously reviewing the data and proceeding deliberately may make the most sense.

By Michael Sebastian on Ragan:

"The vast majority of young people surveyed by Forrester don’t want to be friends with your brand on Facebook.

That’s according to a new Forrester survey saying just 6 percent of 12- to 17-year-olds who use the Web want to interact with your brand on Facebook. Here’s the sting: Half of this demographic uses Facebook.

But it gets worse. “Almost half of 12- to 17-year-olds don’t think brands should have a presence using social media tools at all,” according to Forrester consumer insights analyst Jacqueline Anderson, the author of the report.

Meanwhile, just 12 percent of 18- to 24-year-old Web users want to be friends with your brand, according to Adweek.

Don’t panic just yet—Forrester offered brands some advice.

According to the report—as stated by Adweek:

[Brands] might be better off being more reactive than proactive, and they should listen. Just 16 percent of young consumers expect brands to use social media to interact with them, and 28 percent expect those brands to listen to what they say on social sites and get back to them