Ticketmaster has made social ticketing on Facebook an important company initiative, and it appears those efforts may be paying off with teenagers, according to a new survey by the New York-based market research firm Mr Youth.
Out of 2,000 teens Mr Youth recently surveyed, 21 percent were using Ticketmaster’s new Facebook application. It ranked third behind apps from Twitter (27 percent) and Yahoo (24 percent), but ahead of Netflix (20 percent) and Spotify (15 percent).
The new Ticketmaster app offers its users the ability to tag their seat location on one of Ticketmaster’s 9,000-plus interactive seat maps. Users also can see where their friends are sitting and then buy tickets for adjacent or nearby seats through the app. Privacy settings allow users to decide who can see their seat locations.
“Apps provide an additional way for brands to gain awareness, with 42 percent of teens noticing a brand through a friend’s app usage,” wrote the report’s author, Mr Youth senior director of marketing Nick Fuller. “Do this correctly, and you are likely to win new users (70 percent of teens are ‘likely’ to try an app that they see a friend using).”
Ticketmaster has increasingly turned to Facebook and other social media entities over the past year as a way to stay dominant among a growing list of competitors. The company has also embraced fan reviews on its site, and Ticketmaster’s parent company Live Nation recently invested in teen social commerce company Lockerz to market its brand to the younger set.
Last spring before the app’s launch, users who posted information on Facebook about the concerts they planned to attend helped Ticketmaster see an extra $5.30 in ticket sales, according to the social network.
Fuller told TicketNews that Ticketmaster is taking a smart approach to Facebook by valuing the teen demographic and allowing them to share pertinent information with their friends.
“Teens see their friends as tastemakers, and Ticketmaster is doing a good job of encouraging and empowering this audience in that respect,” Fuller said.
Teenagers spend more than 90 minutes a day on Facebook, Fuller said, where they are interested in checking out each other’s profiles. The Ticketmaster app includes updates on users’ new timelines and walls, which gives teens constant information on what their friends are doing.
“There’s a fine line with oversharing. Teens want quality endorsements, otherwise a company can risk destroying its brand. Ticketmaster appears to be helping teens get on their friend’s Facebook walls in a meaningful way,” Fuller said.
Mr Youth surveyed 2,000 teens last month from around the U.S. between the ages of 14 and 17. The survey field was represented by half males and half females, who were asked a dozen questions concerning Facebook. Each question had at least 500 responses. The survey data was obtained through Crowdtap, a technology platform that helps brands connect directly with influential consumers. Crowdtap was initially developed within Mr Youth before raising venture capital and spinning off in July of 2011.
