Salon owners need to understand social media

The fast-paced, ever-changing social media scene keeps even the most tech-savvy salon owners on their toes. To give you the landscape, salon today gathered the latest stats.

The value of your fans
What’s a facebook fan worth these days? According to a report posted on gigaom.com, about $136. Syncapse, a social media measurement firm, arrived at that estimate by asking 4,000 fans of 20 of the top brands (including Nike, Coca-Cola and Starbucks) on Facebook about their past and future purchasing behavior, then calculating the value of each fan’s spending to the company. The research also concluded:

• On average, fans who “like” you page spend an extra $71.84 they would not otherwise spend on products they describe themselves fans of, compared to those who are not fans.
• Fans are 28 percent more likely than non-fans to continue using a specific brand.
• Fans are 41 percent more likely than non-fans to recommend a product they are a fan of to their friends.

• Twitter currently has 100+million users, with 50 million tweets sent per day.
• Facebook is nearing 500 million users. The average user has 130 friends, spends 55 minutes a day on the site, and received three “event invitations” to real-life gatherings every month.
• LinkedIn counts over 65 million members. A new member joins Linked In approximately every second.
• A veteran MASS MINGLING engine like Meetup has 6.1 million members, handling 2.2 million RSVPs and 180,000 meetups in 45,000 cities a month.
• Foursquare reports one million users, while Gowalla chalks up 150,000 users.
• Nearly three quarters (73%) of online teens and an equal number (72%) of young adults use social network sites. Seventy-three percent of adult profile owners use Facebook, 48% have a profi le on MySpace and 14% use LinkedIn.