On the 6th of October, GroupM Search, comScore and M80 revealed their study on how Social Media plays an intertwined role with search marketing, predominately in the Paid Search arena. The purpose of this study was to explore the connection between social media and its influences on search behaviour. Evidently the results from the research unveiled a dramatic correlation, whereby influenced brands discovered through social media saw a positive impact on their paid search activity, including lower-funnel searches (long tail searches) and increased paid search click-through-rates (CTR).

To put the whole study into a little more perspective, GroupM and the team looked at the background and opportunities between Social Media and Search to identify synergies. The plan was to explore:

• When consumers are exposed to social media and influenced social media, are they more likely to search, and, when they do, more likely to engage?

• Does social media exposure influence search behaviour by driving search queries further down the purchase funnel where consumers are more likely to convert?

• Is there a synergy between influenced social media and search marketing that drives better performance than search only?

Based on these explorations, some of the key findings discovered were as follows:

• Consumers who are exposed to brands influenced by social media and paid search advertising are 2.8x more likely to search for that brand’s products in comparison to users who only saw the brand through paid search.

• 50% CTR increase for paid search when consumers were exposed to influenced social media and paid search.

• Searches related to a brand’s product name saw a CTR increase from 4.5% to 11.8% when users were exposed to both influenced social media and paid search around a brand.

• In organic search, consumers searching for a brand related keyword, who also has exposure through a branded social marketing campaign, are 2.4x more likely to click on organic result.

• Consumers exposed to both a brand’s influenced social media and paid search, spent almost 3x more time online than the average consumer.

However, one of the primary findings the study revealed is that social media expo¬sure is correlated with lower-funnel search behaviour.

In addition to these key findings, there are additional results discovered through this study. If you want to check out the whole research, visit our Outrider US blog, SearchFuel, where you can download the Interplay of Influenced Social Media and Search white paper.

Finally, I thought I’d end with a quote taken from the study.

“It is this ability to influence discovery that signals the single largest shift in how brands and consumers will engage going forward, and represents a significant opportunity for brands to play an active, but natural role in the social space.”