With the likes of Facebook, Pinterest and YouTube adding more shopping tools, new research indicates that a significant number of youngsters are researching brands and products via social media channels.
The study, from Global Web Index, indicates that search engines remain the default go-to point when 16-24s are looking for more information about a brand or product, but it’s now 36% who are turning to social networks.
This gives search engines a narrow 6-point lead (compared to a much-wider 42-point gap for 55-64s).
Taking a look at where these youngest consumers over-index the most is also pretty revealing. Not only are they significantly ahead of average for social networks generally, they over-index by 30% for researching brands on micro-blogs and by 20% for online pinboards.
And with Pinterest and other names in the social space finding more and more ways to encourage such behaviors, it’s surely only a matter of time before social networks finally take the lead from traditional search engines among the youngest generation.
