Excerpt from the Razorfish FEED study on MediaPost:
Of those who follow a brand on Twitter, for example, 44% said access to exclusive deals is the main reason. And on Facebook and MySpace, 37% cited special deals as the main reason they have “friended” a brand. The report points to companies such as Starbucks, which has amassed nearly 5 million fans and soared to the top of Facebook brand pages by offering coupons for free pastries and ice cream.
Whole Foods, meanwhile, leads brands on Twitter with more than 1.5 million followers by promoting weekly specials and shopping tips
Additional stats:
- 40% have friended a brand on Facebook or Twitter
- 73% have posted a product or brand review on sites such as Amazon, Yelp, Facebook or Twitter
via MediaPost Publications Razorfish Study: Special Offers Drive Engagement In Social Media 11/09/2009.
What it means: I’ve been saying for a few months now that special offers/coupons/time-sensitive deals will be the way to monetize this new real-time world. This survey seems to confirm it. This represents a new opportunity for Yellow Pages publishers and a good extension of current monetization models for newspaper publishers and coupon company (the most natural).
Seb Provencher's Blog 
Totally agree, Seb.
Which is why last week, I tried to create the picture for “news” as a use case for real time search, and that news should be extended to local monetisation offers.
It’s obvious really and glad you’ve found these stat tidbits to back up the logic