Report: Email drives more sales than social media

According to a recent report from e-commerce software firm Monetate, a tiny sliver of people who come to sales sites via social media—0.59 percent, to be exact—actually buy anything. Compare that with visits prompted by email (4.25 percent) and search engines (2.49 percent), and you’ve got a pretty big gap.

On top of that, buyers who come from social media sites tend to spend the least.

Tiffany Silverberg, a writer and consultant who helps entrepreneurs and nonprofit organizations tell their stories through social media and other venues, says she knows why.

“If there is one thing that consumers hate, it’s hard sales on their social media sites,” she says. “Despite the realities that social media sites are owned and maintained by outside entities, and the Terms and Conditions that always state otherwise, consumers assume a certain privacy on these sites.”

If that’s the case, what should brands be doing on Facebook and Twitter instead of pitching their wares? Silverberg and other experts weighed in.

The top (or the middle) of the funnel