Shaw Capital Management Factoring: Eventbrite Looks at Why and When We Share

http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2011/03/eventbrite-looks-at-why-and-when-we-share.html
BY CYNTHIA BORIS ON MARCH 17, 2011
Last year, Eventbrite took a stab at putting a dollar figure on the worth of Facebook and Twitter followers. Now, five months later,they’re digging a little deeper into the data to discover why and when we share.
To begin with, let’s look at the data from October of 2010. Eventbrite sells tickets online and what they’re measuring is social ecommerce through the use of “Dollars Per Share” (DPS). Back in 2010, they found that a share on Facebook generated an average of $2.53 in sales, Twitter was $0.43 and Linkedin was $0.90. Factoring in email sharing, they figured that their average DPS for all social media combined was $1.78. Not bad for a campaign that only costs you the man-hours.

When and Why We Share

Eventbrite offers “like” buttons on event pages and “Publish to Facebook” buttons on the ticket purchase confirmation pages. They found that 40% of people chose to share an event prior to buying a ticket and 60% chose to share after. The thought here is that once people have committed to going to an event they’re more likely to share it. But let’s look at that 40%. Why are they sharing an event they may never attend? Could be they’re helpful souls who like to spread the word even if they can’t go for financial or time reasons. Could be they’re testing the waters. I might go if a bunch of my friends agree that it’s a good idea. What would be interesting is to know how many of the pre-share people ended up buying tickets anyway.
Now here’s the kicker. Eventbrite found that a “post-purchase share on Facebook drives 20% more ticket sales per share than a pre-purchase one.”
Think about this behavior in terms of your business. Do you offer customers a chance to share their experience with friends after the sale? I can’t say that I’ve ever noticed or had any interest in this kind of option but it makes sense. I’m a big DVD buyer so I wouldn’t mind telling all my followers that I just bought Barnaby Jones: The Complete First Season if all I had to do was hit a “like” button.
Let’s take that a step further. As an Amazon affiliate, it would be even better if I could hit that like button and automatically have my affiliate link posted to my wall or my Twitter feed. I’d do that in a heartbeat.

The Social in Social Media

Eventbrite says that Facebook had about four times the amount of sharing compared to Twitter. Much of this they attribute to the fact that there are simply more people actively using Facebook. They also make the point that Facebook sharing more closely resembles everyday human conversation as compared to sharing on Twitter.
That last point is a big one and one that isn’t properly appreciated by many marketers. With social media marketing, the keyword is social. To get the most out of your efforts there needs to be a conversation going on between you, your customer and your customers friends. Posting to Facebook is not like putting up a billboard on the freeway. It’s about presenting your followers with posts that inspire them to action, be that sharing with a like button, buying a product or leaving a comment. Of course, that’s not as easy as it sounds. If it were, we’d all be getting rich off of our Facebook fan pages.
Do you offer customers the option of easily sharing their purchase with friends? And how do you go about keeping the social in social media?