A study by Invoke Solutions (via Biz Report) shows that brands need to worry less about follower envy, as the size of your follower or like list won't make most consumers think any better of you.
Invoke found that only 12% of US frequent social media users thought a brand following 'extremely important' with almost two thirds (62%) placing little importance to it. In other words, it really does boil down to what it is you are actually saying - content over an often artificial (bearing in mind how easy it is to inflate Twitter followers) metric.
Another finding: Recommendations do matter. 58% said that social media was an important place to find out about new products (if not to be sold too directly).
52% don't mind sharing locations
The report also had good and bad news for location based social networks. Just over half (52%) of respondents said that they don't mind sharing their locations with brands, meaning that there are a lot of people who are receptive to being marketed to based on where they actually are at any one time.
However, use of these networks is still low. Though awareness of Foursquare was 30%, only 3% used it. By comparison only 5% used Facebook Places, but Facebook's location based efforts are of course still relatively new.