What we know about social media effectiveness

Source: WARC Best Practice, May 2021

Downloaded from WARC

Explores the current thought and writing on social media effectiveness so that marketers can identify
the best channels to meet the brand’s objectives.

Social media platforms have become significant marketing channels combining high reach with the
ability to target based on consumer interests and profile. As paid media channels, their impact can be
maximised by using shareable content that is creatively original, taps into social motivations to share
and evokes positive emotional responses. Understanding how people use and are influenced by the
diversity of platforms is important and can help marketers identify the best channels to meet the
brand's objectives.

Definition
Social media are online communication channels through which users create communities to share information,
ideas, personal messages, and other content (such as videos). They include social networking sites, video
sharing platforms, blogs and micro-blogging platforms, forums and messaging platforms, e.g. Facebook, Twitter,
Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest and LinkedIn.

Key insights
1. Social commerce and real-time marketing are delivering effectiveness on social media

Winners of the Effective Social Strategy category in the 2020 WARC Awards demonstrated how brands are
using social effectively to deliver business results through social commerce and real-time marketing. For
example:
 Social commerce can convert engagement into effectiveness: QSR sector winners showed that brands
can engage people throughout the funnel and convert engagement into effectiveness. For
example, Burger Kingachieved a sales uplift by promoting its new product through a campaign based on
‘creeping’ on social media influencers’ pages. KFC Arabia saw a significant uptake in online food delivery
from its Scroll-Thru campaign, which effectively engaged a millennial audience at all stages of the funnel,
with Facebook content that entertained, engaged and then converted. Success was due to a carefully
crafted user experience, clever use of shoppable ad formats and smart programmatic targeting.

Tapping into current events can be highly effective: For example, wildlife conservation charity WWF ran
a promotion with a twist to drive endangered animal adoptions in the UK. Using social video with a 'get it
while it lasts' theme on Black Friday allowed it to deliver an important message in a culturally relevant
moment, confronting consumerism head-on by highlighting the ‘limited stock’ of certain species. Thousands
of adoption packages were sold with an overall high ROAS and an increased conversion rate.

Digital data can be used to deliver timely and relevant messaging that gets results: German Rail’s
mass-media ‘No Need to Fly’ campaign compared popular international travel destinations to surprisingly
similar ones in Germany and encouraged travelling within the country by focusing on the cheaper cost of
train tickets. Building on this idea, German Rail targeted travel enthusiasts on Facebook, serving up
personalised video ads showing not only how much money, but also how much CO people could save
taking trains instead of planes to travel domestically. The automated campaign drew on information about
itinerary, cost and CO2 emissions in real-time to serve relevant, dynamic ads to individuals in an infinite
number of variations, based on an individual’s interests. The campaign achieved a 113% year on year
increase in CTR and a 26% increase in sales.

Read more in: 2020 Social Strategy Report: Insights from the WARC Awards

2. Social media is not the easy answer to lower TV reach

Brands looking to compensate for a loss of reach through traditional broadcast TV have been turning to digital
platforms, including social media. However, the experience of insurer Direct Line Group shows they need to be
careful of the quality and cost of that incremental reach. After assessing factors such as viewability, view-
through rates and consumer attention, the costs of incremental reach were up to 14 times more expensive than
TV.

Previous studies into reach, ad completion and attention on social media have shown the channel’s limitations.
An Ebiquity study of online video looked at how reach works across platforms, including YouTube and
Facebook. For 16-24s, 25-34s, and 35-44s, advertising served on YouTube and Facebook was found broadly to
be able to match the reach delivered by TV, with YouTube building coverage faster and better than Facebook.
However, when ad completion rates were factored in, the ability of YouTube and especially Facebook to
effectively reach younger audiences was not so clear cut. Cross media attention research from TVision and
Lumen, which goes beyond viewability to what is actually viewed and eyes on dwell time, showed that almost all
YouTube ads get some attention but the average 15-second ad generates about five seconds of actual
attention. Ads on Facebook and Instagram are viewed less and generate about 1.5 seconds of actual attention.

Read more in: How Direct Line Group’s investment in BVOD helped to deliver incremental reach,
Addressing mass audiences at scale in 2020 and The true cost of advertising attention

3. Lack of trust is a challenge to social media ad effectiveness

According to YouGov research, almost a third of adults (30%) say they are engaging with social media
ads more since the COVID-19 outbreak began, driven by India (56%), Indonesia (54%), China (52%) and the
United Arab Emirates (51%). However, fewer than a fifth of adults say they are engaging with social ads more in
Poland (19%), the United States (19%), the UK (17%), Germany (16%), France (14%) and Denmark (9%). This
includes three of the five largest advertising markets – the United States, the UK and Germany. Significantly,
YouGov also found that less than half of adults say they trust social media ads. This is true across all
markets. When compared to other media, social media places second last for trust but scores better for
relevance thanks to its targeting capabilities. This low level of trust may pose a challenge to brands as it could
limit consumer engagement, including with new social commerce formats. This is not helped by the current
social shopping experience, which is far from seamless.

Read more in: Most adults don't trust social advertising and Relevance matters

4. Dark social is an effective channel to drive relevance and convenience

Finnish grocery store Alepa took an innovative, customer-centric approach to boosting sales by crowd-sourcing
requests for products among locals (‘Block Wishes’) using an AI chatbot through Facebook Messenger. This
incorporated company-wide product data and shop locations. Customers could request any product from the
bot, which then searched for matching products and displayed the best in the chat within milliseconds. From
these products, customers could send their Block Wish to the closest Alepa store based on their location or any
Alepa based on the name of the neighbourhood. The logistics and product line changes were made
automatically. 150,000 Block Wishes were generated by 22% of customers, with 70% of wishes fulfilled within
48 hours. Also, the selection in each neighbourhood started to change rapidly so that the chain became a
network of local shops with unique selections.

Read more in: Alepa: Block Wish

5. Social media can be effective over both the long- and short-term

As social matures, it is increasingly at the heart of business and is delivering impressive returns. Research into
campaigns run on Facebook found that both brand and direct-response advertising can drive sales – though
brand messaging is often more cost-effective. The analysis showed that lower-funnel ads (explicitly focused on
actions like clicks and purchase) yield more incremental sales than upper-funnel ads (focused on brand
building). However, brand advertising did drive incremental sales for all the verticals assessed. When taking
media cost into account, the study found that upper-funnel campaigns are typically cheaper, on a per-impression
basis, than the lower-funnel alternative as they aim for a broader reach. As a result, brand building has
comparable return on investment to lower-funnel efforts.

Two brands from the 2019 WARC Awards – Starbucks and McDonald’s – demonstrated social’s ability to
combine long-term brand-building with short-term promotional mechanics. Starbucks needed to create an
engaged fanbase of customers who could be nudged to bring an additional Starbucks beverage into their daily
routines. Over eight years, the brand deployed social media for promotions, influencer campaigns, events and
merchandise, which often led to consumers sharing posts featuring the brand. It’s estimated that these social
campaigns alone have driven more than $14.9m of additional profit for Starbucks in the UK.

Read more in: Brand advertising on Facebook can drive cost-effective sales, Effective Social Strategy
Report: Lessons from the 2019 WARC Awards, Starbucks: lessons in balancing spend and Starbucks
and social: How Starbucks created the fourth place in coffee culture

6. Social media ad spend growth has been revived thanks to the COVID-19 lockdown

People are spending more time on social media during the COVID-19 pandemic and it appears the backlash
against the big social media firms and big tech in general is subsiding. Apps and platforms including TikTok,
Twitch and Houseparty experienced a surge in usage during lockdown. Social media returned to its original
purpose of bringing people together, whether it be through heart-warming viral videos or practical, local
community support groups. Brands are responding by using the social channels for community management,
customer service and providing entertaining or useful engagement. With people becoming more comfortable with
online and social media alternatives, and experiences such as livestreaming, some may make them part of their
post-lockdown routines – particularly as the need for social distancing may persist for a while. All these changes
provide brands with the opportunity to hone their social strategies – including experimenting with it as a brand-
building channel.

Read more in: Global Ad Trends: Three Themes from 2019 and The evolution of social media through
COVID-19

7. To get attention, social media ads should be feed-friendly

Research from Facebook IQ and MetrixLab on which video ads are most likely to be viewed in-feed on mobile
suggests ads should:

Integrate the brand into the narrative early, but in a meaningful way
Land the main message sooner rather than later
Be as long as needed, and as short as possible (there is no strong relationship between view-through-rate
and brand recall)
Tell feed-friendly stories, which capture engagement initially but continually reward continued engagements
with heartbeats of story
Respect the context it will be consumed in – public spaces, small screens, 1x1 or vertical

LEGO is seen as a prime example of a brand using feed-friendly content on social media. The brand has used
feed-friendly content and a digitally savvy presence to have a meaningful role in consumers’ digital lives. This
goes from simple and elegant digital display advertising, to innovative and disruptive augmented reality LEGO
studio tools. LEGO achieved this, in part, because a clear role for digital was articulated at a strategic level,
allowing them a clear framework to support and continue to invest in digital brand building activity over time.

Read more in: How digital channels can help build a brand

8. Social media is a channel for long-term brand-building

A study of the impact of social advertising on brand metrics, using data from Facebook and Instagram
campaigns in Kantar Millward Brown’s digital ad effectiveness database, found that most of the campaigns had
a positive impact on the factors that contribute most to building strong brands. The research, the first of its kind,
examined 235 campaigns across 100 different brands. It found that social media had the biggest impact on
awareness, but that there were also significant impacts on brand associations and motivation. The research also
found that impacts were the same on mobile as on desktop.
A further Kantar study with IAB Australia, looking at the effect of digital media on brand building, confirmed social
media’s effectiveness in driving awareness, brand favourability and purchase intent. It also showed that the
brand impact of social campaign exposure is retained after it ends – 20% of impact is retained for eight weeks
after exposure. Social also proved to be highly cost-efficient, having the highest share of brand impact compared
to the share of spend of all on- and off-line media.

Read more in: The Digital Brand Effect: How digital advertising builds brands and delivers long-term
brand impact, Social Media: Deal or no deal? – a study by Kantar Millward Brown, Facebook and Saïd
Business School, Oxford University, and How social media builds brands

9. Social media has yet to realise its full potential

A major study in 2018 looked at the effectiveness of different media channels. This included a meta-analysis of
75 major research reports and proprietary data sets evidencing the effectiveness of different channels for brand
building. It ranked social media as only the seventh most effective medium – though senior industry executives
perceived it to be third, behind TV and online video. However, there was evidence that social media performs
well in terms of targeting (second only to radio) and production cost (ranked third, behind online display and
radio). A re-run of the study in 2020 showed largely the same results.

Read more in: Re-evaluating media and Re-evaluating media for recovery

10. A human tone can make for more effective social media communication

Research conducted by Oxford University in collaboration with Kantar Millward Brown found that the campaigns
best at driving long-term brand impact were those where the brand communicated in a personable way – using
human language, tapping into people’s emotions and avoiding functional words and phrases.

Brands seeking to attract attention on social media can also gain insight from scientific research. One such
study shows the more humanised the message, the more receptive the audience. If a brand’s personality has
human traits and its consumer interactions a human tone, it can activate areas of the brain consumers use when
thinking about or interacting with other humans – tapping into the natural predisposition to empathy.

Read more in: Language is key for effective social media communication and Why brands need to create
social attention for effective communication

11. Social media metrics should assess content and audience quality as well as
engagement

There are three key kinds of social media metrics. Firstly, foundational core metrics assess growth and overall
performance. They track engagement so effectiveness and efficiency can be measured over time. Secondly,
content strategy metrics assess the quality of your and competition's content to guide future posts. Lastly,
audience quality metrics evaluate your fans and followers' social interactions and behaviour to help identify
potential influencers and partnerships.

Read more in: How to select the right metrics for social media
More on this topic
WARC Topic Page: Social Media

WARC Case Studies: Social Media (lead channel)

WARC Data: Global Ad Trends: The Social Slowdown

WARC Best Practice: The WARC Guide to shoppable media

WARC Best Practice: What we know about marketing on Facebook

WARC Best Practice: What we know about marketing on Twitter

WARC Best Practice: What we know about marketing on Snapchat

WARC Best Practice: What we know about marketing on Pinterest

WARC Best Practice: What we know about marketing on Instagram

WARC Best Practice: What we know about marketing on WeChat

WARC Best Practice: What we know about marketing on LinkedIn

WARC Best Practice: What we know about marketing on TikTok

WARC Best Practice: What we know about dark social

WARC Best Practice: What we know about e-commerce and social commerce

WARC Best Practice: What we know about earned media

WARC Best Practice: What we know about online video effectiveness

Further reading
Digital advertising works by making memories, not delivering clicks

Building a brand across the scale of immediacy: Practical progress from a theory of online
advertisements

Inside the NHL’s social media and digital content power play

William Grant’s data-driven distillery attracts a new whisky drinker

Optimising ROI on Social Media: Emotive clarity reaps rewards

The impact of airing Super Bowl television ads early on social media: Benefits and drivers of
watching, liking, and sharing advertisements on social media

How Fiat Chrysler played a different kind of game for a Super Bowl win
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