How Consumers Use Social Networks to Connect with Food Retailers: Expected Web Presence

Looking first at websites, nearly half of the survey participants responded that they felt it was mandatory for a food retailer to have a website that promoted food products while only 35% indicated that it was mandatory for the website to sell products through e-commerce (Table 1).  In regard to emails, 35% felt it was mandatory for the food retailer to have an email newsletter.  Meanwhile, only 26% felt it was mandatory for the business to send other types of emails, those not related to a newsletter.  As we looked at social media, we saw that about one in five indicated that they felt a Facebook Page or Profile was mandatory.  That figure falls to fewer than 10% for Twitter, blogs, and MySpace.

Table 1.  Components survey participants felt were mandatory for a food retailer.

Component	Percent response
Website for promoting food products	49.0%
Website for selling food products	35.0%
Email newsletter	34.9%
Email sent by the business	26.4%
Facebook Page that consumers may "like"	31.7%
Facebook page	20.9%
Twitter	8.5%
Blog	8.4%
MySpace page	7.3%

 

As shown in Table 2, the expectations differed significantly across age groups.  The percent of those who felt that a website for selling products was mandatory increased with age while the percent of those who felt a Facebook page was mandatory decreased with age.  With respect to gender differences, more females (27.1%) were more likely than males (18.4%) expected a food retailer to have a Facebook Page.  Finally, those with a high school degree or less were significantly more likely than those with at least some college to believe that a Facebook Page was mandatory (Table 3).

Table 2.  Percent of participants, segmented by age group, who responded that they expected a food retailer to have a website for selling products and/or a Facebook Page.

Age group	Website for selling product is mandatory	Facebook Page is mandatory
18 to 24	25.0%	23.9%
25 to 36	29.3%	24.0%
37 to 48	38.6%	25.5%
49 to 64	36.8%	17.5%
65 and older	38.5%	12.8%

 Table 3.  Percent of respondents by education level who thought a Facebook Page was mandatory for a food retailer.

Education level	Percent response
High school graduate or less	29.4%
Some college	17.1%
B.S. degree	22.2%
M.S. degree or greater	18.2%

Some conclusions can be drawn from these results.  First, more participants expected a food retailer to have a website through which they could sell products than to have a Facebook Page.   As food retailers continue developing their online presence, they can search for updates on consumer social media participation and usage because we suspect that, over time, more people will expect a business to have a social media presence.  In our research, relatively few expected a food retailer to have a social media account.  However, for participants who expected a food retailer to have a social media presence, Facebook was the network they expected the retailer to use.  Therefore, Facebook should probably be the first tool to use if your business does not yet use social media.  Finally, results continue to indicate that younger people were more likely than older participants to expect a social media presence.  When designing a social media strategy for your business, the above findings along with your own research will help you reach your target audience.

In the next article, we will present data that discusses which tools respondents found useful in connecting with fruit and vegetable businesses.  To view the entire YouTube series, please visit http://bit.ly/wWIXto.