Those influenced by Facebook are more likely to take an omnichannel approach

Nearly 70% of millennial social media users are at least somewhat influenced to make purchases based on their friends’ posts, but what types of products are they buying and how?
According to a January 2014 report from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research, US millennial internet users flocked to different social networks to post about different types of products they wanted to buy.
Beauty and apparel products, however, influenced millennials across all social networks. Half of the study’s respondents purchased an item in this category after posting on Twitter, while 47% and 45% did so after sharing on Pinterest and Facebook, respectively.
Twitter was the channel millennials were most likely to post on when they were interested in buying food and drink. More than one-fifth of those who used this channel purchased a food or beverage item after tweeting about it. Just 11% of respondents who posted about food and drink on Facebook and 7% who shared on Pinterest ended up buying the item later.
Technology lovers predominantly used Facebook to share information about electronics they would like to purchase. Eighteen percent of respondents bought a tech item after posting about it on the social network.
Known for inspiring do-it-yourself enthusiasts around the globe, it is no surprise that millennial internet users who pinned art, design and gardening products on Pinterest were significantly more likely to purchase them than those who posted to Facebook and Twitter.
When it came to buying, those who were influenced by posts on Facebook took more of an omnichannel approach than their peers motivated by Twitter and Pinterest. Nearly eight in 10 millennial internet users who made a purchase after seeing an item on Facebook shopped both online and in-store.
Those who did shop online relied heavily on their mobile devices to do so. One-quarter of the millennials surveyed reported making 100% of their online purchases on their smartphones, while 16% made all of their digital purchases on a tablet.