25 Social Media Statistics to Shape Your Marketing Strategy Facts and figures to plan your social media marketing strategy around

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Social media has completely changed the landscape of Marketing.

However, of the various digital marketing strategies, social media is still the one that raises the most questions from marketers.

Businesses aren't sure which social media strategies work best or how to measure ROI, but they believe social media marketing is important and they're ready to spend money to improve their efforts.

Take a look at these 25 statistics to gather insights on the current state of social media marketing.

1. 85% of marketers surveyed said that they would spend more on LinkedIn this year, followed by Twitter at 78% and YouTube at 70%. (Regalix, 2015)

LinkedIn never gets the credit that Facebook and Twitter receive, but if you know what you're doing, LinkedIn can be your most powerful distribution channel.

2. 80% of marketers indicated that their social media efforts increased traffic. (HubSpot, 2014)

Your persona is already on social media, waiting for great content to show up on their timeline -- all you have to do is provide it for them.

3. 72% of marketers are using social media to develop loyal fans. (HubSpot, 2014)

Brand loyalty is incredibly valuable and social media is the perfect channel to create relationships with your persona.

4. 66% have a dedicated social media team. (Salesforce, 2015)

Social media management is a lot of work when you do it right. Most brands today need to have an in-house team or they turn to agencies like us to handle it for them.

5. A significant 92% of marketers indicate that social media is important for their business, up from 86% in 2013. (Social Media Examiner, 2014)

Marketers see a lot of trends come and go, but I think it's safe to say that social media isn't going anywhere for a long time.

6. Marketers want to learn most about Google+: While 54% of marketers are using Google+, 65% want to learn more about it and 61% plan on increasing Google+ activities. (Social Media Examiner, 2014)

Google+ is the oddball of the biggest social media platforms, making it confusing for marketers to figure out how to get the most from it. However, Google has shown a clear preference to brands with engagement on Google+ in their search rankings, so it's worth learning how to use.

7. Facebook and LinkedIn are the two most important social networks for marketers. When forced to only select one platform, 54% of marketers selected Facebook, followed by LinkedIn at 17%. (Social Media Examiner, 2014)

Facebook continues to hold the top spot as the biggest social media platform, but you'll see that several other statistics suggest this might not be the case for long.

8. Most marketers aren’t sure their Facebook marketing is effective: Only 34% of marketers (slightly more than one in three) think that their Facebook efforts are effective. (Social Media Examiner, 2014)

Facebook's pay to play approach has led a lot of marketers to look elsewhere. Combine that with the next statistic and you'll understand why most marketers aren't sure how well Facebook marketing is working out for them.

9. A significant 88% of marketers want to know how to measure their return on investment for social media activities. (Social Media Examiner, 2014)

Having systems in place to track all of your metrics is important, but measuring the direct ROI from social media activities is still one of the biggest challenges for companies today.

10. Figuring out how to target customers and prospects is a big concern for marketers (83%). Because of the enormous size of social networks combined with ever-changing ways to connect with people, marketers need guidance. (Social Media Examiner, 2014)

This is one of the reasons that we advocate creating your buyer personas as soon as possible to give your marketing campaign a clear direction.

11. 46% of web users look towards social media when making a purchase. (Marketing Tech Blog, 2014)

Social media is a great source for seeing real-time feedback from the customers of a business that you are considering purchasing from. This is why it's important to have a dedicated social media team that can engage with fans and handle customer services problems quickly and professionally.

12. Most top brands are on Facebook (99%), followed by Twitter (97%), Google+ (70%), Pinterest (69%), and Instagram (59%). (Marketing Tech Blog, 2014)

While you might want your brand to be where the top brands are, this also shows that there are opportunities to reach your persona on social platforms where the top brands aren't there to compete.

13. B2B marketers invest in social media to increase brand exposure (83%), increase web traffic (69%), and gain marketing insights (65%). (Marketing Tech Blog, 2014)

Social media is great for increasing brand awareness and generating leads, but you can also use insights from social media to create dynamite buyer personas.

14. 70% of business-to-consumer marketers have acquired customers through Facebook. (Marketing Tech Blog, 2014)

If your brand is targeting consumers, the odds are in your favor that you will find customers on social media.

15. The most common type of content posted by brands on Facebook is photos (75%), followed by links (10%), statuses (6%), albums (4%), video (4%), and other (1%). (Marketing Tech Blog, 2014)

Do you want to create eye-catching photos for your social media campaigns? Use the HubSpot photo editor to spice up your photos or you can use a free tool such as Canva.

16. 67% of Twitter users are far more likely to buy from the brands they follow on Twitter. (Marketing Tech Blog, 2014)

This is exactly why it's important to form a relationship with your persona on social media, instead of bombarding them with marketing messages.

17. The top 5 reasons why people follow brands on social media are; promotions and discounts, latest products information, customer service, entertaining content, and ability to offer feedback. (Marketing Tech Blog, 2014)

There should obviously be a balance between self-promotion and discussion with your social media posts, but the top reason people follow your brand is to stay updated on what you're offering -- don't be afraid to show them.

18. The average Twitter user follows 5 or more brands. (Marketing Tech Blog, 2014)

In the early days of social media, people were hesitant to mix brands and personal relationships on their timeline. However, Twitter users have always been more loyal to brands than Facebook users.

19. 83.8% of luxury brands have a presence on Pinterest. (Marketing Tech Blog, 2014)

Pinterest users love to create boards dedicated to dream homes, dream vacations, and basically anything else that wish they had -- such as luxury items.

20. 67% of luxury retail brands are active on Instagram. (Marketing Tech Blog, 2014)

Instagram is the perfect platform for luxury brands because they can post photos that help their persona visualize the experience of owning that product.

21. As consumer use of social media for brand comments and complaints continues to increase, brands are having a hard time keeping up. Only about 20% of consumer comments generate brand responses, and the average response time is over 11 hours. (eMarketer, 2014)

This presents one of the biggest opportunities to stand out on social media -- providing great customer service. These are the strategies behind the companies that do it right.

22. 72% of all internet users are now active on social media. (Jeff Bullas, 2014)

Instead of seeking out new content, social media makes it easy for new content to find us. If your buyer persona uses the internet, they are on social media, and that's where you need to be to connect with them.

23. Facebook accounts for 15.8% of total time spent on the Internet. (Rocket Post, 2014)

Considering that there are almost 1 billion active websites online right now, owning 15.8% of the total timeshare is huge.

24. Adding social sharing buttons to email messages leads to an increase in click-through rates by more than 150%. (Social Times, 2014)

It's not every day that you learn something this simple and effective.

25. eBay is the most engaging brand on Twitter. (Dotrising, 2015)

If you're going to study a brand to see what works for social engagement -- learn from the best.

Key Takeaways:

Companies are increasing their spending on social media marketing.
The late-adopters are finally coming around and more companies than ever feel that social media is important to their business.
Companies struggle to measure the ROI from social media marketing.
The top reason consumers follow brands online is to receive promotions and they are most loyal to the brands they follow.
Very few brands are successfully offering customer service through social media.
The majority of people who are online are on social media.