There’s been plently written about how important it is to reach your constituents online and how to choose which channels to go through. But a recent report put out the the GroupM Search, a search engine marketing firm, examines how online channels can influence each other. The report, The Influenced: Social Media, Search and the Interplay of Consideration and Consumptions specifically examines how paid advertisements, social media and search behavior are all interconnected and what types of exposure make consumers more likely to search.
In the study, the researchers broke search activity into two categories: upper funnel, which exhibits awareness of the brand, and lower funnel, which exhibits brand loyalty. For example, someone googling “Coca Cola” is upper funnel activity and someone googling “stadiums that sell Coca Cola” is lower funnel activity. Obviously, it’s the goal of all marketers to increase lower funnel searches.
The good news is that your brand-specific social media (as opposed to social media which is just about your product category- eg. Coca Cola v. soda) and paid advertisements are the perfect companions. Their research showed that seachers who were exposed to both paid ads and influenced social media were three times as likely to perform lower funnel searches than those who were just exposed to ads. On top of that, those that already use social media (which is pretty much everyone these days) stay online 20% longer than those who don’t.
So not only does a social media presence increase the quality and quantity of conversations that you have with your prospects, it also serves to complement your other online outreach efforts. By engaging through social media, you give your brand added credibility and increase your constituents’ likelihood of clicking on a paid ad. Increasing your social media presence is an incredibly effective way to ensure that you’re maximizing your marketing spending.
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