I was honored to have an opportunity to speak today at the Digital Life Design conference (aka DLD,) today in Munich alongside industry leaders including Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook and Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post.
Along with comScore Co-Founder and CMO Linda Abraham, we delivered brand new research around social marketing for the 2011 holiday retail season. This data gives a good sense for the way social media strategies helped both overall social impressions and the bottom line for four of the world’s biggest retailers.
Below are the highlights of the data released for Walmart, Best Buy, Target and Amazon:
- The research analyzed paid media versus earned media for the above retailers. The data shows that earned social media impressions can stack up favorably against paid ads for brands who maximize their efforts. Using an estimated value for earned impressions of $3.55 CPM, Walmart earned $417,000 worth of impressions while Best Buy earned $86,000 in impressions.
- Promotions can significantly expand the viral impact of social media to friends of fans. When looking at the lift received from promotions that started in November, all four brands received a lift of 2.2x or higher. Target received the highest lift between October and the end of November at 3.5x.
- For most retailers, a significantly higher percentage of fans and friends of fans visited the retailer’s website, as compared to the rest of the Internet. A whopping 64% of Amazon’s fans visited Amazon.com, compared to 27% of the total Internet. For Best Buy, 18% of fans and 13% of friends of fans went to BestBuy.com, compared to 8% of the total Internet.
Do you want to see the rest of the presentation from DLD? Check out the slides below for the entire presentation! Also, get in touch if you have questions on how Buddy Media and comScore can help maximize the returns of our social marketing efforts.
Buddy Media DLD Keynote: How Social Media Influences Consumer Behavior
