• Brandweek, Tuesday, April 10, 2007 11:01 AM

When it comes to making purchasing decisions, one in three Internet users report being influenced by Web sites that publish user product reviews, according to a report from search marketing services firm iProspect and JupiterResearch, a Web research firm. The study, which polled 2,223 respondents in January, sought to measure how consumers use social networking sites.

Strangely enough, Amazon.com, the Web's largest retailer, turned out to be the most influential site when it came to making decisions, even though it's not a social network. Product reviews, which Amazon encourages its users to fill out, were considered social content for the survey. The aim of the study was to show how effective peer reviews are in influencing purchasing decisions.

The study also measured usage of major social media sites like MySpace and YouTube. YouTube tends to skew male: 28% of men reported visiting the Google video site at least once a month versus 12% of women. Also, the younger the user, the more likely they were to visit a social media site. Sixty-eight percent of 18-24-year-olds visited MySpace at least once a month, versus 65% for YouTube, and 42% for Facebook. Murray pointed out that up to 90% of visitors to social networking sites don't post--meaning they're not so effective for product reviews.

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