As you begin to enter the social media marketing space, you’ll start to hear about “fans,” “friends” and “followers” — variations on the connections that people make in these environments. These relationships provide a first layer of measurement for social media marketing success, as they define your primary high-value audience.

While you don’t want to evaluate success strictly in terms of the number of followers or fans you amass — their activity, particularly relative to blog pageviews or, even better, purchases is far more important — this is the foundation from which you will drive the interactions that yield returns.

So, why do customers and clients become company and brand fans? Well, the answer varies with the type of social media user involved.

According to MarketingSherpa, there are three basic categories: Daily Users, Max Connectors and everyone else (i.e., “All Respondents”). Max Connectors are users with more than 500 social connections (e.g., on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter). Daily Users are exactly what you think they are, though they lack the number of relationships as Max Connectors. Finally, All Respondents consists of Max Connectors, Daily Users and everyone else who participated in the study.

Max Connectors: connect aggressively and build wide networks — though they may derive little value from most of these electronic relationships, as they can’t keep track of everyone. According to MarketingSherpa, these users “exemplify the new social consumer” and are considered “especially valuable targets,” because of their reach. But, you’ll struggle to get on the radar of a max connector, because you’ll be competing with hundreds and hundreds of other users.

Daily Users: though Max Connectors may seem to be crucial to social media marketing, enter:marketing tends to emphasize the value of the Daily User. This user is committed to the social media environment, as evidenced by daily use. And, the smaller group of friends and other relationships suggests that this user expects more direct value from each interaction. Think of the Daily User as a high-value, niche user. There is a considerable return to be gained from connecting with a large number of users of this type.

All Respondents: everybody (defies categorization by definition)

Despite the salient differences among these groups, their reasons for friending/following/fanning a company in a social media environment are remarkably consistent. All three types use social media relationships to learn about the new products, features or services being introduced by a company. Sixty-one percent of Max Connectors and Daily Users establish relationships with companies via social media for this reason, with 62 percent of the total sample citing this reason.

Users that engage in social media relationships to learn about specials, sales and other deals are quite valuable to marketers, as they are establishing the connection in order to facilitate a future purchase. Strangely, Max Connectors are less likely than other social media users to be motivated by this savings opportunity. Only 46 percent of Max Connectors follow/friend/fan companies for this reason — compared to 65 percent of Daily Users and a total response rate of 64 percent.

The remaining motivations are considerably less important. Max Connectors may be drawn to a company’s culture or corporate social responsibility stance (48 percent), but this matters less to Daily Users and to the sample as a whole. And, all categories have roughly a third of their users following a brand or company for entertainment value.

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