McKinsey has a great article on recent research defining the impact social media has on consumers. While I’ll let you go to their article and get the complete picture, I can say I was surprised that they found that 26% of purchases were influenced by social recommendations. Keep in mind that a social recommendation counts word of mouth and the sneakernet version of social.
26% of purchases are influenced by social recommendations. (tweet this)
They also found that top influencers accounted for a disproportionate share of the overall influence. The top 5% accounted for 15% of the recommendations. What does this have to do with digital transformation? Consider that companies across the world are still trying to figure out their new marketing mix and whether or not social tools have a place in their budget and outreach. This highlights that for many companies it does and it’s bigger than originally thought.
It’s worth reading the entire article.