Research shows that posting products on Facebook, sending messages on Twitter, and connecting with customers on LinkedIn can help you drive sales for your business. While it is sometimes difficult to determine if investing in social media marketing can deliver better returns than conventional forms of marketing, social-savvy businesses are actually discovering many benefits from customer engagement and information sharing through the popular social networking sites.

Quantifying the value of social share

By analysing millions of transactions across various businesses engaging on social media, experts were able to quantify the value of a social share. The results prove that social commerce works, with every message sent on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn delivering $4.80 in additional revenue. Interestingly, the average value of a social share in Australia ($4.80) is well above the global average ($3.70), coming second only to Canada.

Social media sharing drives traffic, as well

Aside from the revenue, sharing information and engaging on social media also drive traffic to your website. Data show that a single share result to 9 additional visits on average, with Twitter leading this trend as it generates 38 additional visits on the average for every share made.

Twitter is Australia’s most effective social channel

Compared to Facebook and LinkedIn, Twitter delivers on average two to four times more revenue and page views in Australia. In fact, in the last two years, Twitter’s influence has continued to increase while Facebook’s has decreased. This is because of several factors such as Twitter having a lower penetration than Facebook and Twitter feeds being less cluttered and easier to read

Facebook, on the other hand, has a deeper penetration making the newsfeeds more cluttered and filled with information. Facebook users, thus, tend to miss a lot of information being shared by businesses.

If you think that social media is just another trend that will fade in the years to come, think again. There are data and evidences that show social media can effectively drive sales and traffic to your business.