Although a new study suggests social media has very little direct impact on most website traffic, social networking sites do influence consumers’ interest in visiting companies’ URLs.
In fact, fewer than 1% of website visits came from a link to a social media page, according to research released Thursday by ForeSee Results. However, 18% of website visitors said social media content–such as a Tweet or a friend’s comment on Facebook–prompted them to stop by the URL, the study found. These are benchmark averages, with some individual companies seeing vastly different results in both direct and indirect influence percentages, ForeSee cautioned.
“We ask people, ‘What influenced your visit to this website?,’ and then we give them a list of choices. We ask about primary, secondary, and tertiary influences so we are able to get a good sense of what kinds of marketing activities have the most impact. If someone “likes” Best Buy on Facebook and sees that there is a sale on TVs and then types www.bestbuy.com into their browser and clicks through a Google ad, Best Buy will register that as an SEO win rather than a social media win,” said Larry Freed, president and CEO of ForeSee, in an interview. “We feel it’s very important to have behavioral data–like where they came from–in addition to attitudinal data–what influenced them, what satisfies them, etc.”