Social Media is the number one driver of all website referral traffic.

Social Media Marketing Statistics in General.

Online adults aged 18-34 are most likely follow a brand via social networking (95%).

Think about your audience and see where they are most likely to follow your brand.

71% of consumers who have had a good social media service experience with a brand are likely to recommend it to others.

Use social media as an effective customer service tool to increase brand engagement and win new customers.

There are 1.65 billion active mobile social accounts globally with 1 million new active mobile social users added every day.

Make sure to optimize your mobile social media campaigns and since mobile ads are relatively cheap and easy to produce, test multiple versions to see what works the best.

96% of the people that discuss brands online do not follow those brands’ owned profiles.

Companies need to go beyond their own channels and monitor those unbranded conversations in order to gain valuable insights and manage brand health.

Visual content is more than 40 times more likely to get shared on social media than other types of content.

Flying Point Digital has a great post on how to create an innovative content strategy on social media.

FACEBOOK

In 2015 Facebook influenced 52 per cent of consumers’ online and offline purchases, up from 36 per cent in 2014.

This shows the importance for retailers to manage their social media channels which will have a direct impact on purchase behaviour.

There are 40 million active small business pages in Facebook but only 2 million of those businesses pay for advertising.

Therefore, small-sized companies should consider paying for Facebook ads in order to gain visibility and surpass competitors relatively easily.

There were over 4.4 million videos uploaded directly to Facebook in February 2016, generating over 199 billion views.

Video marketing is a powerful tool that personalizes your brand and increases conversions.

Only 20% of Facebook posts generate an emotional response while no ads did.

Instead of using Facebook as an emotional medium, delivering dynamic and tailored messaging to people in specific stages of at key times can yield much better results.

The best time to post on Facebook is 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday. Other optimal times include 12:00–1:00 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays and 1:00–4:00 p.m. on Thursdays and Fridays.

Try using tools like Buffer or Timely to auto schedule your posts.

INSTAGRAM

Top brands on Instagram are seeing a per-follower engagement rate of 4.21% which is 58 times higher than on Facebook and 120 times higher than on Twitter

Instagram has become a powerful platform for marketers and its potential cannot be overlooked any longer.

Media brands are the most active whereas business services, financial services, and fast moving consumer goods have the lowest percentage of brands represented on Instagram.

Also, the increase in business activity on Instagram the brand posting frequency is becoming more normalized and standardised to highlight the increase in a more measurable approach.

90% of Instagram users are younger than 35.

Instagram has become the social media network for targeting millennials.

Posts tagged with another user (56%) or location (79%) have significantly higher engagement rates

So don’t forget to add ‘with whom’ and ‘where’ to your Instagram posts.

How does social media drive traffic, you ask?

By engaging viewers and offering them useful, relevant content.

Holding surveys, asking questions, connecting with the audience.

Getting feedback, analyzing and adjusting your marketing strategy as a result.

Using brand recognition;

making sure the brand is in front of potential buyers in case they are looking for your services, giving them incentives to buy.

Associating with influencers.

Expanding the professional reach of partners and collaborators, associating the brand with industry influencers; becoming an influential source of advice and information and sharing website content.

Increasing customer retention and brand loyalty

Social media is better than any other feedback tool because it’s a medium in which you get social, and you receive the sincere responses from your audience and customers. You easily find out more about your target audience, (better profiling for your customer), and your target audience gets to know you better as well (which in turn increases conversion and loyalty).

Gaining trust and credibility

People expect your company to have Facebook and Twitter profiles because it’s a way they can contact you and find reliable information. You look legitimate, and the more people hear about your brand, the more credibility you will gain.

SEO score.

Every SEO expert knows your social media account affects your SEO score as well, affecting your website traffic in turn. Social networks are starting to look more and more like search engines, and you can’t do SEO without taking care of social media accounts on all relevant channels. Choosing the right Social Media channel for your business<