The survey excerpted below is the first I’ve seen of its kind. It shows that there might indeed be a link between fan pages on facebook, and similar business profiles on social networking sites, and people actually buying the products or services offered by that business.

The study by Chadwick Martin Bailey and iModerate Research suggested that 51 per cent of fans of Facebook Pages and 67 per cent of Twitter brand followers are likely to buy products and services from the firms they are connected with.

Research like this will only encourage the major businesses to pay more attention to their online brands and to running un defamation campaigns.

http://www.bluhalo.com/news/view/7829/econsultancy-reputation-management-to-grow-in-popularity