In the era of Mad Men advertising, we were influenced by the slick billboards, television commercials and magazine ads that we saw.  The imagery in those advertising outlets made everything practical or sexy.  The visions were created to make us want to be just like that person that we saw.

In this Forbes article –  Are Brands Wielding More Influence In Social Media Than We Thought? the surprising statistic was that people were influenced by friends posts 81% and by companies posts 78% of the time.

Other research has shown that if a person befriends a company on a social media platforms, they are 51% more likely to buy from that business. Market Force did a survey with these results:

So from this evidence, it is almost as much about what a company is says in its advertising as it is about peer recommendations.

• When was the last time you asked your peers for recommendations, received a response and acted on that response?
• How much are influenced by the “push” of information coming into your social streams?  Do you “like” an organization to get a discount or special and then hide them from your stream?