• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, November 5, 2009

Tweeting the name of a product's brand on Twitter may have become one of those so-called "touchpoints" in the sales funnel that marketers try desperately to capture. It all boils down to where marketers will spend the dollars as they try to allocate budgets for next year.

It may help to know that nearly half -- 48% -- of people who saw a brand's name on Twitter went to a search engine to look for the product, compared with 34% on any social network. That's according to a joint study released Thursday by Performics, the marketing arm of Publicis Groupe's VivaKi Nerve Center, and ROI Research, an analytics and technology firm.

At Ad:Tech on Friday, Performics Marketing Senior Vice President Michael Kahn will present the findings. Of the 3,000 active social network users in the United States, about 70% use Facebook, 40% use YouTube, and 22% use Twitter. Participants answered about 100 questions total that focused on how they use social networks to discover products, and the type of advertising they will tolerate.

It appears that consumers will tolerate more interaction than marketers first believed. "Consumers are receptive to brand marketing messages," Kahn says. "Being in a social network is like going to someone's barbecue. People are talking about the experiences of their lives. The sharing experience that happens in the physical world also happens in the social."

Among survey respondents, 30% admitted to learning about a product, service or brand on a social network site. Twenty-seven percent say they remain receptive to receiving invitations for events, special offers or promotions from advertisers through the sites, and 25% admit to going directly to an online retailer or ecommerce site after learning about a product or service on Facebook, Twitter or another social site.

The study found that 44% of people have recommended a product on Twitter, and 39% have discussed a product on Twitter. Facebook skewed a bit higher. Forty-six percent of respondents say they would talk about or recommend a product on Facebook. The economy has heightened awareness of printable coupons, which gained acceptance in social network sites in the past year. The coupons' message resonates the loudest with consumers -- in fact, 32% say that's a message they listen to loud and clear. Sales and special deal notifications follow at 28%; offers to win points for online currency, 23%; and sweepstakes participation, 21%.

"Consumers are open to asking about brands, sharing information and taking action on information they get from social networks," Kahn says.