THE SCIENCE OF SOCIAL

An Experiment in Inuence

Contents
Introduction ................................................................... 04 Hypothesis ..................................................................... 05 Key Findings .................................................................. 06 Approach ....................................................................... 07 Results ............................................................................ 08 Conclusion ..................................................................... 14 Appendix: Experimental Design .................................................... 17 Methodology ................................................................. 20 Real World Action ......................................................... 22 Contributors .................................................................. 23

Introduction
Anyone whos been close to the marketing industry over the last few years is fascinated with the evolving view of social. Once it was all about Facebook fans. Then in 2009, as Facebook understandably wanted to reect more accurately the relationship that people have with brands, fans became Likes. And then in its collective wisdom, the UK marketing industry declared that Its not all about Likes. As an industry, we havent been great at articulating the contribution that social media can and does make to a business. Social is changing marketing, and other areas of business, at a pace that sometimes masks our ability to demonstrate its true value. Theres an imperative to building the business case, to evidence the impact social can have on our clients business. Whilst we agree that the opportunities presented by social media go far beyond Likes, the question still remains what are they worth? The problem, as we see it, is that there is a fundamental disparity between the intellectual and nancial investment made in social media and the body of effectiveness to support it. Aegis Media has therefore conducted a research study to at least begin to bridge this gap. Unlike a lot of the research done in this area, which focusses on the value of an individual fan to a business, our study focusses on their indirect social value. We are not yet in a position to share a denitive set of results, but rather to post a substantiated hypothesis that will warrant further investigation. So, we hope what we are about to share is interesting, stimulating, thoughtprovoking and, above all, practical.

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Our Starting Hypothesis

The research outlined in this report, including experimental design and data analysis, was planned and run in collaboration with Jon Jachimowicsz and Joe Gladstone, academic researchers from the University of Cambridge Judge Business School. There were 3 reasons for commissioning this study.

THE MEASUREMENt iMPERAtiVE Clients want to know that a fan is worth the money they have paid to acquire them. Its equally natural that as an industry we want to prove a fan will become a more valuable customer. Throughout Social Media Week, and at meetings held between clients and agencies during almost any other week, the value of a fan remains a hot topic. Often the phrase ROI will be mentioned in the same breath. Return On Investment is a nancial metric that is concerned with the transactional value an individual on a brands social channel may represent. This is an established metric that we are all familiar with and works in social the same way as with any other marketing activity. But social is not necessarily like any other marketing, however, and not all denitions of value are transactional. We wanted to test the value of social in a manner consistent with the way people themselves use social. with existing customers, how can you make that show up in an econometric study designed to track acquisition performance? Side-stepping the ROI question isnt good enough. Clients should still expect a return on the not insubstantial investment they put into their social platforms. We wanted to move forward the thinking on creating robust and measurable results for a businesses social media spend, while considering the idea of how welcome brands are on the social platform.

INFLUENCE OF GROUP BEHAViOUR Our insights into human behavior have become more sophisticated in recent years. Their application to the world of marketing is more prevalent, thanks to the popularisation of theories developed by behavioural scientists. From this eld has emerged the familiar notion of social proof. This is a phenomenon whereby people are unconsciously affected by the behaviour of others. Sometimes these are referred to as social norms, or herding effects. Social networks can often feel like concentrated group behavior in a way that echoes the herding effects we observe in the real world. As peer-to-peer networks, they can act as echo chambers that magnify ideas or behaviours at scale, quickly, as people follow the majority behavior. We wanted to test whether people are unconsciously inuenced by group behavior online, in a similar way to how they are ofine.
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PEER tO PEER Social networks have never belonged to brands. They belong to people. Users rst thought or action is not always to connect with brands, but to connect with each other. Understandably, brands want be involved. A good marketing team will follow its customers and attempt to add value to what their customers nd important. It has not always been easy to demonstrably deliver value to business through social media. If social channels are an opportunity to develop and maintain good relationships

Summary of Key Findings

Our ndings suggest that Likes generate an unconscious and immediate effect, similar to any number of cues in the real world. We can conclude that human behaviour ofine translates into social networking behaviour online and furthermore, that appropriate interventions on brand pages can yield measurable effects. High Facebook users were more likely to be more positive respondents overall. This demonstrates the importance of social media as a realm for creating positive brand perceptions and suggests that brands are a welcome presence on the Social Media platform. A high number of Likes do help improve brand perceptions. There is a statistically signicant relationship between the number of Likes respondents believed the brand to have, and how positively they answered the questions relating to the brand.

However, while this positive trend is very steep as

Likes increase from a Low to a Medium level (0-2000 Likes), it tails off signicantly between Medium and High (10,000+ Likes). Further Likes above the tens of thousands do not seem to deliver a proportionate level of increased positive perception. More study is required to conrm the exact thresholds for consumer herding effects and explore their meaning for brands.

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Approach

Rather than running a eld experiment including real brand Facebook pages, we chose the boundaries of a controlled lab experiment, run on Amazon Mechanical Turk. The greater control offered by the experiment is traded off against external validity (the extent to which the results are applicable outside the experiment in the real world). Despite this, we attempted to make the experiment as realistic as possible, by creating a ctional premise that we were conducting market research. This allowed us to understand the cause and effect relationship between Facebook Likes and a variety of brand perception variables. The study created a new brand named Ashwood Furnishings along with a storyline about their expansion from the UK to the US on the occasion of their 150th anniversary. Participants were asked to provide their views on the brand based on its Facebook page, to help it make the transition to the US market.

ASHWOOD FURNISHINGS - beautifully designed affordable homeware Established in 1864 in the UK, Ashwood Furnishings is a family-owned business crafting a range of beautifully designed products at affordable prices to enhance your home. Our designs have been featured in magazines such as Elle Decoration and Living etc. We are passionate about making quality British designs affordable for many. Our teams of designers are hard at work producing everything from dinnerware and glasses to tables and sofas and not a at-pack in sight. As we approach our 150th anniversary, were looking to expand our business beyond our British shores and bring our beautiful designs to the US through your local stores and online. Welcome to Ashwood.

es

t. 1 8 6 4

Figure 1: Background Information and Logo of Ashwood Furnishings provided to every participant

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Results Highlights
The experiment substantiated our hypothesis: It showed a statistically signicant relationship between the number of fans respondents believed the brand to have, and how positively they answered the questions relating to the brand.

1. FACEbOOK LiKES iMPACt ON bRAND PERCEPtiON Facebook Likes inuence consumers in their responses to the questions in signicant ways. If we split the conditions into small, medium and high numbers of Likes, then we see clear patterns of higher Likes leading to higher positive endorsements on the brands on many different characteristics.

4.30

Mean I would consider purchasing products from Ash Furn

4.20

4.10

4.00

3.90

3.80

3.70 1.00 2.00 3.00

Condition variable into small, medium and high

Figure 2: Chart showing overall correlation between number of Likes and positive perceptions of brand

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Results Highlights
2. PERCEiVED POPULARitY iMPROVES PERCEPtiON ON tHE StAtEMENtS tHAt MAttER The most signicant relationships existed with six of the statements that would perhaps matter the most to marketing teams. These statements represent important signals from customers. We can see them as sitting along a spectrum of intensity towards the brand, suggesting that a brands popularity on Facebook can impact on a users intent towards a brand at quite a deep level. Interest - I have a strong interest in this brand Trust - I trust this brand Consideration - I would consider purchasing this brand Preference - This brand would be my rst choice Advocacy - I would encourage friends to buy this brand Value - This brand could become very important to me

4.30

3.80

Mean I would consider purchasing products from Ash Furn

4.20

Mean LO1. I could see myself being loyal

1.00 2.00 3.00

3.60

4.10

4.00

3.40

3.90

3.20

3.80

3.70

3.00 1.00 2.00 3.00

Condition variable into small, medium and high

Condition variable into small, medium and high

0.20000

0.15000

Mean Ash Furn could become very important to me

1.00 2.00 3.00

Mean Zscore(mbe_perceived_quality)

3.40

0.10000

3.20

0.05000

3.00

0.00000

-0.05000

2.80 1.00 2.00 3.00

Condition variable into small, medium and high

Condition variable into small, medium and high

Figure 3: Charts showing correlation between number of Likes and specic positive brand perceptions

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Results Highlights
3. THE RELAtiONSHiP bEtwEEN FACEbOOK LiKES AND bRAND PERCEPtiON MAY bE SUbjECt tO DiMiNiSHiNg REtURNS With so many questions and quite a wide distribution of data, we wanted to see if consolidating the data would demonstrate a clearer trend at population level. We aggregated the six statements that showed the most signicant correlations with Facebook Likes, and we grouped the 12 different factors into three clusters of respondents who were shown Low, Medium and High numbers of Likes. Running a multi-varient analysis of varience with all dependant variables (i.e. questions) and condition as IV (i.e. the 12 different categories of number of Likes) showed signicant difference for condition at p<0.05. Therefore, from a statistical perspective, Facebook Likes matter overall. This helps us see a clear overall trend. Facebook Likes do help improve brand perceptions. While this trend is very steep as Likes increase from a Low to a Medium level, it tails off signicantly between Medium and High. At a population level, the study showed that more Likes didnt deliver a proportionate level of increased positive perception. A key aim of the experiment was to nd out the level of diminishing returns to Facebook Likes (to decide when investing is worthwhile, and when it is not). Although clear differences exist between Low Likes and High Likes (see Figure 4) the data does not provide a clear picture for all the conditions in-between, meaning answering this question is difcult. This difculty arose because participants responses to the questions were highly variable, meaning participants generally gave very different responses to the questions, regardless of how many Likes they were exposed to. It is apparent that consumers have subjective and diverse opinions on brands based on Facebook Likes. This variability is to be somewhat expected in a betweensubjects design.

Factor 1 - Factor Analysis

0.20000

0.00000

- 0.20000

- 0.40000 Low Medium High

Facebook Likes
Error Bars: 90% CI

Figure 4: Graph showing improvement in perceptions of brand drop off above Medium numbers of Likes

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Results Highlights
EXAMPLE ASHwOOD FURNiSHiNgS BECOME VERY IMPORtANt tO ME COULD

In this example, there is a clear difference between lower numbers of Likes (left) and higher (right). However, in-between these two is a lot of variability and few decisive patterns.

4.00

3.60

3.40

3.20

3.00

Due to the messiness of the data from individual questions, we decided to run a factor analysis (reducing the amount of data into fewer super-categories). A factor analysis is a statistical technique used to compress a wide range of data points into fewer data points with as little loss in information as possible. In a factor analysis, dependent variables (i.e. what was measured) that share variability. This means that we tried to group those questions together that changed similarly as the number of Facebook Likes changed. Factor analysis is especially useful in a dataset that is overall rather messy, especially as it can show linkages between questions as well as disassociations between one set of questions and another. Moreover, the question-categories created usually have a lower overall variability, which facilitates follow-on statistical analysis . The rst factor, which included the participants responses about Loyalty, Preference for Ashwood Furnishings and Purchasing Intention, explained over 30% of the overall variance, and so is a good proxy for the overall results. This factor overall shows a signicant difference across the condition p=0.036. So, even when we reduce the variability considerably, Facebook Likes are still important.

Mean Ash Furn could become very important to me

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154

873

1700

13000

22000

78000

89000

2.4m

2.8m

8.6m

9.2m

Condition
Error Bars: 95% CI

Figure 5: Graph showing perceptions of Loyalty to brand according to number of page Likes

When we graphically represent Factor 1, across low, medium and high Facebook Likes, we see that there is a big jump from small (thousands or less) to medium (tens of thousands). After that there is a much smaller difference between tens of thousands and millions.

These graphs show the general trend at a detailed level of how the largest jump in consumers responses to the brand are usually at the beginning of the Likes distribution (0-2000), and dont consistently jump thereafter.

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Results Highlights

4.20 4.00 3.90

Mean Ash Furn is an honest brand

3.80

Mean I trush Ash Furn

12 154 873 1700 13000 22000 78000 89000 2.4m 2.8m 8.6m 9.2m

3.60

3.30

3.60

3.00

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2.40 3.20

2.10 3.00 12 154 873 1700 13000 22000 78000 89000 2.4m 2.8m 8.6m 9.2m

Condition
Error Bars: 95% CI

Condition
Error Bars: 95% CI

5.00

Mean I would consider purchasing products from Ash Furn

3.75

4.50

Mean AW2. I can quickly recall the symbol or logo

12 154 873 1700 13000 22000 78000 89000 2.4m 2.8m 8.6m 9.2m

3.70

4.00

3.65

3.60

3.50

3.55

3.00

3.50

1.00

2.00

3.00

Condition
Error Bars: 95% CI

Condition variable into small, medium and high

Figure 6: Graphs showing perceptions of other positive qualities of brand according to number of page Likes

4. FACEbOOK LiKES ACt AS UNCONSCiOUS CUES FOR USERS We know from existing behavioural science studies that people are inuenced by thousands of unconscious cues every day. Our brains use shortcuts also known as heuristics that make manageable the numerous decisions we constantly make. Our experiment was designed to test whether Facebook Likes might act as one of these cues. Since respondents knew nothing of the brand other than the short biography they had been shown, Likes are the only variable that might be affecting the results. (See Figure 9, in Appendix)
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We also surveyed respondents immediately after showing them the test stimulus. This suggests that Likes generate an unconscious and immediate effect, similar to any number of cues in the real world. We can conclude that ofine human behaviour translates into online social networking behaviour in direct ways that, through appropriate interventions, can be manipulated to yield measurable effects.

Results Highlights
5. DiFFERENt tYPES OF USER SHOwED DiFFERENt EFFECtS One of the most clear variances from the overall population level trend was seen when we compared people who use Facebook frequently and for long periods (High users) with people who are less active on the platform (Low users). High Facebook users were more likely to be more positive respondents overall. Interestingly, they were also more likely to be more positively affected by high numbers of Likes than Low users. This graph summarises the relationship. High numbers of Likes inuence high-users of Facebook more. Low users are not any more inuenced once you get to Medium number of Likes on a page. High users are less likely to be subject to the diminishing returns relationship we showed in nding 3.
I could see myself becoming loyal to Ashwood Furnishings
3.80

3.70

Facebook Use
3.60 Low High

3.50

3.40

3.30 Low Medium High

Facebook Likes

Figure 7: Graph showing level of Facebook usage against overall positive perceptions of brand

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Conclusion
INFLUENCiNg OFFLiNE bEHAViOURS We can conclude from this lab-style experiment that Facebook Likes matter. The results demonstrate that the phenomenon of herding, described in behavioural economics for ofine behaviour, also applies in the case of Facebook Likes to online behaviour. This raises the question of what other facets of behaviour change expertise may be applied to the online realm. What markers may be found for these and how they might form part of a new system for online marketing that has a robust methodology for measuring the effect of marketing interventions. A next phase to this research will identify the inuence on actual behaviours, such as signing up to an email list and actual purchasing of goods, rather than only the users perceptions of a given brand after exposure to their Facebook page. Ideally, it would not be a lab-style experiment but a test in the public realm and even using a known brand. This will rule out the problems with the lab conditions themselves affecting the results, and have more exciting implications for the use of behavioural thinking in the world of social media.

THE bUSiNESS CASE Now that we know Facebook Likes contribute in a measurable, signicant way to the herding effects that create perceptions around a brand, it is time to further interrogate this behavioural journey. We always guessed that a Low number of Likes will create poorer brand perceptions compared to a High number, but we now know that there are diminishing returns over all. We have also discovered that it is a different picture for High versus Low Facebook users. For example, for Low users, it seems that there is a really interesting moment when the positive effect of Facebook Likes levels off after a certain number of Likes higher than medium is reached. That magic number - the minimum number of Likes needed to inuence Low social media users to think more positively about your brand - is a potentially exciting and useful new marketing product. The process by which this magic number is arrived at will require further research that takes into account sector, brand and what we want people to do after they have been exposed to the page. On a business level, we can conclude that it is worthwhile for brands to spend money on promoting social media pages early in their marketing plan and, once a certain threshold of Likes has been reached, not continuing to invest heavily. We consider this study to be a step towards being able to formally advise brands on what the business case is for allocating and apportioning their social media spend; what they stand to get from it and where there is space for robust return versus innovation in how they market their products.
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Conclusion
FUtURE RESEARCH We wish to take a broader view of social media use and other factors that affect unconscious behaviour while browsing online to esh out this enquiry. Likes are just part of the picture and there is a question mark over authenticity here; Facebook Likes can be purchased in bulk and manipulated by marketers with ease if they are willing to spend that money. What about the quality of Facebook Likes? What is the effect when a brand is recommended by a friend or you can see that a number of your Facebook friends already Like a given brand? The role of messenger is likely to be powerful and will have a different resonance for better known and less known brands. For which of these will there a stronger positive effect on brand perceptions? We can easily guess the outcome here, but how can we measure when in the brands journey the pace of change diminishes? What is the story here for different types of user? The effects of marketing interventions on High users of social media are likely to be very different to Low users and what types of social media audience are most effectively targeted with different styles of marketing intervention is a worthwhile area for future research. We look forward to partnering with curious marketers in exploring and expanding this new learning, and invite further discussion with a purpose to conduct a series of real world brand specic trials over the forthcoming months. For anyone interested in exploring this with us, please contact us via the details at the back of this paper.

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Appendix

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Appendix: Experimental Design

The study employed 600 participants in the United States. Each participant was given the exact same information: the brand, logo, story, and Facebook page were all identical. The only difference was in the number of Likes they were presented with, 12 categories ranging from 12 to 9.2 million Likes. This approach allowed us to ensure any differences found between groups were purely because on the number of Likes they saw, and not anything else. Participants were then asked a series of questions related to the brand, based on what they had seen from the Facebook page, including questions such as I would consider purchasing products from Ashwood Furnishings and I would say positive things about Ashwood Furnishings to other people.

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2.4m

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Figure 8: Number of Likes presented to participants per condition

Figure 9: Examples of Facebook pages with alteration in the number of Likes according to group condition

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Appendix: Experimental Design

REAL LiFE PURCHASE BEHAViOUR The study attempted to move beyond just asking about peoples intentions to buy and attitudes towards the brand, but to also see if we could nd differences in their real life behaviour following the study. Participants were asked to enter their email address in order to receive a voucher code for a discount off Ashwood Furnishings when it arrived in the US market. The number of people entering their email addresses was recorded. Specially designed emails were then sent out to participants 48 hours later, containing unique links which could be tracked via Google Analytics, to measure differences in the number of people who clicked through to the link. To our valued future customers! Many thanks for recently signing up to receive voucher codes from Ashwood Furnishings. This is such an important time for our company having begun building furniture as a family business all the way back in 1864, we are so excited at the chance to bring our unique style along with our affordable prices to the US market, and we are sure our range of home ware and furnishings will be as popular here as they are in the UK. Please click on the link below for your unique voucher code for money off your rst order with us! Its our way of saying thank you for your interest. <link> We very much hope to see you in our stores or online soon. Kind Regards, The Ashwood Furnishings Team!

DEBRIEF Thank you for your interest in Ashwood Furnishings. We are sorry to let you know that Ashwood Furnishings is not a real company. It was set up as part of an academic study into the impact of Facebook Likes on consumer decision making. We greatly appreciate you taking part in our study on m-turk, and this email was a follow up to that study. We used the offer of a voucher code to assess how interested participants were in the company Facebook page you viewed. If you have any concerns or questions regarding the study, please email****************** at *******.********@googlemail.com.

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Appendix: Experimental Design

RigOROUS SELECtiON PROCESS Every effort was made to ensure that the participants we were using on Amazon Mechanical Turk were reliable and relevant for our study. This selection process was done in two stages. Firstly, various criteria were set before people could sign up to the study. They had to be: based in the US, have a full or part-time job, and be experienced with tasks on Amazon Mechanical Turk. Moreover, we preferred English to be their rst language (587/600 met this condition). Secondly, we had to make sure that participants were completing the study properly, and giving it proper care and consideration. Therefore, we had stringent checks in place to lter out those who did not engage fully. Participants were asked three questions: How many comments were on the Facebook page? What was the anniversary date being celebrated by Ashwood Furnishings? How many Likes were there on the previous page? The criteria for using a participants responses was that they had to answer 2 out of 3 questions correct (the possibility of answering these two by chance is less than 5%). Following this process of ltering, we were left with 383 responses to analyse. The attrition rate was similar across conditions (no systematic differences), with participants per condition ranged from 25 to 43.

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Appendix: Methodology
HOw DiD wE SELECt tHE QUEStiONS FOR tHE StUDY? We consulted the following study as it presents a reasonable proxy for what we are interested in investigating: Developing and validating a multidimensional consumerbased brand equity scale. Boonghee Yooa and Naveen Donthub (2001). Journal of Business Research. http://people.hofstra.edu/Boonghee_Yoo/papers/2001_ JBR_Brand_Equity_Scale.pdf This is an inuential paper, cited over 780 times. The scope of the study was as follows: A multi-step study to develop and validate a multidimensional consumer-based brand equity scale (MBE) drawn from Aakers and Kellers conceptualizations of brand equity. A total of 1530 American, Korean American, and Korean participants evaluated 12 brands from three product categories (athletic shoes, lm for cameras, and color television sets). Multi-step psychometric tests demonstrate that the new brand equity scale is reliable, valid, parsimonious, and generalizable across several cultures and product categories. The fact the questions have already been validated (i.e. shown to work) in different countries is helpful to us, as we are hoping to demonstrate that our study has meaning outside the US where our study was conducted. The present research went above and beyond Yooa & Donthub (2001), who used these questions in various sub-categories, and tailored their questionnaire for our particular research agenda.

Figure 10: Effects Sizes and individual signicance tests

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Appendix: Methodology
Other questions were also asked but which did not show signicant results.

EFFECt SiZES PARtiAL EtA SQUARED Were the effects sizes we found large or small? Small: >0.01; Medium: >0.06; Large: >0.14 In Cohens terminology, a small effect size is one in which there is a real effect -- i.e., something is really happening in the world -- but which you can only see through careful study. A large effect size is an effect which is big enough, and/ or consistent enough, that you may be able to see it with the naked eye, one which is very substantial. Several of the signicant questions were around medium effect sizes. This is likely to have occurred as our study was a lab study. In real life, consumers would spend longer on Facebook pages, take them more seriously because theyre real, and wed expect the effects therefore to be larger in eld trials.

WHAt AbOUt tHE QUEStiONS tHAt wERE NOt SigNiFiCANt? The reasoning behind the non-signicant results: Our choice of master Amazon workers who had already completed at least 1000 HITs. Hence, we didnt get many nave participants The tiny difference in things we changed. Out of an entire page array and text presentation, we changed just the number of Likes, a tiny detail The huge variability in participants, due to prior dispositions to Facebook, preferences for furniture sales etc.

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Appendix: Real World Action

Our call to action described under Approach, where we sent voucher codes to all participants and asked them to click through to a link, was not successful. Ideally, we would have seen more numbers of click throughs in conditions with higher Facebook Likes. The problem was that too few participants clicked through to our link (e.g. 5 in 47 in Condition 2). With so few people clicking through, it is not possible to make meaningful comparisons between the groups. One explanation for this may have been that participants knew they were taking part in a lab experiment, despite our efforts to mask it as market research, and so provided fake email addresses to us, or ignored emails related to the task. Another explanation is that our emails could have been ltered into peoples junk folders (though in pre-testing we made efforts to make sure this wouldnt happen). However, perhaps no such explanations are needed when we consider that many direct marketing campaigns have response rates below 5%. It is always risky to try to bridge real life with a laboratory experiment. In future experiments, we should make sure the test uses real consumers, either through a partnering website, or directly through social media.

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Contributors
With special thanks to Joe Gladstone PhD Researcher in Behavioural Economics, University of Cambridge Judge Business School Jon Jachimowicsz PhD Researcher in Behavioural Economics, University of Cambridge Judge Business School Mark Cross Senior Partner, Equal Stephen Donajgrodzki Senior Partner, Equal Ed Hartigan Head of Social, iProspect James Caig Head of Social Strategy, Isobar Nick Siantonas Behavioural Strategist, Isobar Ian Edwards Managing Partner - Head of Strategy, Vizeum Richard Morris Managing Director, Vizeum

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