Social media by the numbers highlights key facts and figures around using social media as an engagement platform for brands.

3. 6. The average cost to influence purchases via social networks is 3x lower than the average for online spend (Never Ending Friday) 7. Ability to predict customer behaviour is 36% higher for companies who are adept in the use of social media (Digital Influence Group) 8. Usage of social media channels among marketers jumped 84% last year (Mashable) 9. There are over 200m blogs worldwide (Technorati) 10. 25% of search results for the world’s 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content (Marketing Vox / Nielsen BuzzMetrics) 10 reasons why I need a social media strategy cont’d