'Earned Media' Gives Brands a Lift in Social Media Advertising

The Nielsen Company and Facebook have done a joint study into the lift in ad recall, awareness and purchase intent from exposure within Facebook.

The study on social media advertising effectiveness looked at three types of ads on the social networking giant:

Typical ads on the homepage
Ads that incorporated the names of friends who were brand fans
Mentions of the brand in a friend’s newsfeed

Ads with “social advocacy” components—that is, those that included information about users’ friends increased recall, awareness and purchase intent significantly.

For example, Facebook users exposed to both a homepage ad and brand mentions in their newsfeed were three times as likely to remember the ad and be aware of the brand than viewers of the homepage ad only.

Purchase intent was four times as great among viewers of any marketing with a social component compared with users exposed to just a traditional ad.

earned media

Further, earned media exposures continue to have an effect beyond that of repeated exposure to traditional display ads. Brand awareness and purchase intent showed significant lift even after 10 or more impressions.

earn media exposures