If there is something of vital importance for companies, that is to reach their target audience effectively, both as potential customers and existing ones.

Companies strive every day more with this goal to create a user experience as complete as possible to, in this way, create the long-awaited customer relationship with her. For this, brands are forced to interact as closely as possible with their community, and, in the case in which the community responds, the motive must be considered.

What is the reason why the audience, the community, responds to the call of brands?

A clear example of the linking of customers with a brand is Apple. The fanboys and fangirls anxiously await each product that the brand launches to the market to come quickly to the stores to acquire them, and, in addition, they are staunch defenders and prescribers of the brand. What is the secret? A great product and great customer service.

According to a study by  the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute on the top 200 brands on Facebook, only 1% of fans participate, interact or really commit to brands on Facebook. But what moves them? Why do these users really follow the brands?

Consumers, customers do not give their loyalty for nothing. Users, when they come into contact with a brand, when they become their followers, expect to obtain a benefit that other users can not get, such as special promotions or exclusive offers for them.

Another related report developed by Get Satisfaction highlights how users’ motives for following a brand have nothing to do with loyalty, but with what they can get from the brand.

The report reflects that 36.9% of users who follow a brand through social networks like Facebook do so to obtain special promotions or exclusive offers, while 32.9% do so because they are already customers. However, there are other reasons why users follow a brand, for example, because their friends and acquaintances are fans of the company, which occurs in 6.2% of respondents.

The fact that users interested in the content shared by the brand only reaches 18.2%, although it is not a low percentage, while 5% assesses and justifies the monitoring of the brand by the service of attention to the client.

In the case of Twitter, more than 43% of users become followers of a brand to get special promotions, 23.5% because they were previously users and 22.7% for the relevant content shared by the brand. The percentage of users who become fans or followers of the brand on Twitter by influence of other friends is similar to that of Facebook, reaching 6.3%, while in terms of monitoring by support is less than in the social network of Zuckerberg , reaching 3.5%.

Therefore, we can conclude that users do not expect a friendship from brands in social networks, but that they offer advantages and special treatment for the simple fact of being a customer.