In recent years, organizations are faced with increasing online buzz around brands. It’s not surprising that messages in social media are described as increasingly influential. But what is the true impact of messages in social media on consumers and on organizations reputation? And how trustworthy do consumers find messages in social media? These questions formed the basis for ING to conduct a large scale research with InSites Consulting and Social Embassy on trustworthiness and impact of social media messaging under 1,500 respondents. Today we launch the results of the “Impact of social media 2012″ study (#SMING12).
The study gave us a tremendous amount of valuable insights on how consumers perceive online messages in social media. The most important thing we learned is that financial messages in online and social media appear to have a large impact on consumers. The role of social media is becoming increasingly important in the development of reputation and brand preference for organizations. Although traditional media is still perceived as more trustworthy and impactful than social media the research shows that it appears that the impact of traditional media suffers from the rise of social media.

Some interesting insights:

• Contact frequency: 55% of consumers reads at least weekly financial messages in online media like news sites and websites of newspapers. 1/3 of consumers reads financial messages through social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter at least weekly
• Messages on Facebook appear to have impact on brand awareness and recall. ING is active on Facebook with advertising and community management. 29% of respondents remembered seeing messages from ING on Facebook. What people remember corresponds to advertising / communication (41%) and personal experience (36%).
• Facebook also appears to have an effect on brand preference. 25% of consumers found that messages of ING on Facebook acknowledged the choice they made for the brand.
• 4 out of 10 consumers find messages in social media trustworthy.
• Trust in messages in social media increases significantly for high frequent social media users.
• Frequent social media users find messages in social media as reliable as messages in online media like websites from newspapers.
• When asked directly people think that social media has little impact. However, messages in social media lead to change in opinion, preference and behavior more often than messages in online media.

You can view the full report below (in Dutch).