We listened to marketers of the world’s biggest brands when they asked, “What’s the impact of Facebook on my brand?” and we decided to take a look for ourselves. We proudly present our latest research, “The Facebook Factor.” In the report, we answer the pressing question, “How much more likely are Facebook fans to purchase, consider, and recommend brands, compared with non-fans?” We used logistic regression modeling to find out. The impact? We call it the “Facebook factor,” and I urge you to read the report to find out how you can leverage our methodology to assess the Facebook factor for your brand.

In the report, we use four major brands as case studies to assess the Facebook factor for Coca-Cola, Walmart, Best Buy, and BlackBerry(Research In Motion [RIM]). Guess what? Facebook fans are much more likely to purchase, consider, and recommend the brands that they engage with on Facebook than non-fans. As the graphic below shows, Facebook fans of Best Buy are about twice as likely to purchase from and recommend Best Buy as non-fans.

And we didn’t just examine the impact of Facebook fans in a silo. We compared the impact of engaging with these brands on Facebook with the impact of other driving factors of brand engagement on these metrics. For example, being a Facebook fan has almost double the impact on purchasing from Walmart as having a Walmart near a consumer’s home.

So what does this mean for companies? The fact that Facebook fans are more likely to buy (and spend more on), consider, and recommend the brands they engage with on Facebook shows that the purchase process is not a dead-end road. Brand engagement is a driver of loyalty and purchase for companies, and Facebook is a great channel for advocates to share brand experiences with others. Read the full report to find out more about what this means for your organization.

Interested in finding out more or having Forrester assess the Facebook factor for your brand? Please contact me for more information.