Social media is a critical component of any online marketing strategy. Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest help your business connect with customers, keep your brand front and center, and promote specific products and services. Social signals are also an important part of ranking well in search engines. Studies show that 40% of users bought a product after liking, sharing, or pinning it on a social media network.

But a successful social media marketing campaign requires great content, engagement, and important staff resources. How can businesses selling online choose which social network to invest their time in? Here’s a closer look at how metrics can help you measure your social media effectiveness and what some of the latest research suggests.

Measuring ROI on Social Media Campaigns

Which social media platform is the most effective for driving social sales? In order to answer this question, it’s important to understand how to measure return on investment (ROI) from social media campaigns. Spend the time to understand how your social campaigns are performing and influencing your company’s bottom line. Ongoing evaluation of your campaigns helps you target networks that generate the most return for your business and end campaigns that are not doing well. Here are some specific metrics that you can consider when looking at your social media promotions:

- Number of followers gained by platform, measuring value in terms of brand exposure and potential to amplify your messages

- Quality of followers, either by the strength of their account (e.g. potential reach by number of followers) or their match to your ideal customer profile

- Levels of engagement, through the percentage of posts that are liked or shared

- Brand sentiment, including how often your company is mentioned and whether those mentions are positive or negative

- Functions of your business that migrate to social channels, such as customer inquiries or customer service requests

- Traffic that’s driven to your website or other online assets

- Percentage of that traffic that can be quantified as a lead, typically based on taking a specific action such as signing up for your email list or submitting a form

- Overall percentage of socially driven leads that turn into paying customers

- The quality of those customers, measured in terms of their lifetime value or how much money they spend with you over the course of your relationship

Social Media Studies Show Facebook Leads the Way

Current research offers interesting clues on where businesses should be focusing their efforts. Social to Sale, a report released by VisionCritical and featured in the Harvard Business Review, surveyed more than 6,000 consumers on their social media usage and purchasing habits. All social platforms are influential for social shoppers, but the study revealed that Facebook leads the way by generating 38% of socially driven purchases. 29% of customers from social media came from Pinterest, and 22% from Twitter.

Other Studies Show Facebook Still in the Lead, But Others Gaining

BusinessInsider’s subscription-based BI Intelligence Service recently released The New Art Of Social Commerce: How Brands And Retailers Are Converting Tweets, Pins, And Likes Into Sales, covering the latest social commerce trends from Q2 of 2013. The analysis comes from a different angle than the VisionCritical study. Instead of surveying consumers, they analyze server-side data from retailers using technology provided by AddShoppers. The findings are similar, with Facebook in the lead, driving 28% of social commerce. But Twitter and Pinterest also sent significant traffic, each coming in at over 20% of the total leads. Notably, Pinterest is showing rapid growth in its influence as compared with previous years.

For businesses working to understand the social media world, it’s clear that Facebook is an important channel. If your business has a strong visual component, Pinterest is the other network to focus on. The landscape may be shifting rapidly, however, so be aware of the changing trends. Most importantly, take the time to define your own social media metrics for success and measure the ROI on your campaigns on an ongoing basis. Rigorous monitoring of your social channels will give you the best barometer of which activities will help your business generate the most leads, sales, and profits.

An added note: use of Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest (if applicable) creates the best of all worlds by maximizing the available channels reaching your target customers. But combined, they will never serve as big of an asset as your website which is where you are driving all your customers to. That’s why, even with a brick and mortar store, your website is your single most important factor in converting new consumers. Make sure it’s magnificent!