Since the very emergence of social media communicators and marketers have been reluctant to invest in social media because, as they say, it’s more or less impossible to measure ROI (Return on Investment). Apparently, not much progress has been made in this area - this year’s Social Media Marketing Industry Report shows that the third most important question professionals want answered when it comes to social media is how to measure the return on their activities. Important to mention though is that normally ROI is associated with sales and not with qualitative metrics such as reputation and image, which on the other hand are also sales drivers, but in a more indirect manner.
AddShoppers did some research in this area and discovered that social sharing does indeed drive sales unlike common beliefs that it only provides qualitative benefits. After analysing $5,000,000 worth of eCommerce transactions they found some pretty interesting insights, which I thought I should share with you:
- A Google+ share is significantly much more valuable than a Facebook (or any other social media platform) share - the difference between the two is $8,43!
- Facebook on the other hand drives the highest social revenue of all channels at ca. 39%, followed by Twitter with ca. 20% and Google+ driving only ca. 6,6% of social revenue.
- Apparel and electronics are the two top sharing categories; holiday and office are topics people don’t really like sharing.
- Facebook is the platform that drives the most sharing for clothes and apparel and Twitter and Google+ for electronics.
Check out the infographic below for the rest of the results. Is there a number that shocks you?
(Click on the infographic for a larger view)
Infographic and image by AddShoppers