Owned Social Media Sales Lift

ContentLiadeli, G.; Sotgiu, F.; Verlegh, P.W.J. · 2023Journal of Marketing
Topicsowned social media·social media engagement·sales elasticity·meta-analysis·content strategy·functional vs hedonic content

You are about to sign off on next year's social plan. The proposal measures success in followers, likes, and comments, and the sales team barely looks at it. Do you keep social as a community-building line item, or hold it to a sales number? The evidence says hold it to sales: a brand's own posts lift sales more than they lift likes and shares, and the content that wins likes is not the content that wins sales. Fund social as a revenue channel, and split the content by which goal you are chasing.

Your brand's own social posts move sales harder than they move likes and shares.

Most teams treat brand-owned social media as a way to build community, with any sales effect assumed to be small and indirect. Pooling the results of 86 studies shows the reverse: sales respond more strongly to extra posts than engagement does (a sales elasticity of about .35, versus about .14 for engagement). That gap is not an impression: the study tests it formally and finds sales respond roughly 2.6 times as strongly as engagement. Social is not only a likes-and-shares channel; budget it as a sales channel too.

Data chart

When a brand posts more, sales respond more strongly than likes and shares

Sales elasticity0.35Engagement elasticity0.14

A brand's own social posts move sales harder than they move likes and shares, so social deserves a sales budget line.

Action guide

  1. Budget owned social media as a sales channel, not only a community channel.A brand's own posts lift sales more than they lift likes and shares, so set sales targets for social where they fit instead of defaulting to reach and engagement.
  2. Split content by the goal you are chasing, because the winner reverses.Lead with emotional posts when you want likes and shares (community-building posts underperform emotional ones even for engagement); lead with product, how-to, and informational posts when you want sales. The post type that wins one goal underperforms on the other.
  3. Stop relying on discount posts to sell.Deal and discount content is the weakest sales driver here, and no better for sales than emotional posts. Shift that effort into informational, product-focused content.
  4. Judge a community by percentage sales response, not follower count.Smaller, tighter follower bases return a bigger percentage sales lift per post, even though big brands still sell more in absolute terms (a ceiling effect caps their relative gains); don't treat chasing follower growth as the path to sales from social.
  5. Concentrate owned posting on new-product launches.New products get roughly six times the sales response of established ones, so front-load your own content around launch windows.
  6. Anticipate lower sales lift from free posts on ad-saturated platforms.Favor full social networks over short-post platforms for engagement; on platforms that have opened up paid advertising, owned posts show a weaker sales association, a cross-study pattern rather than a before/after test.

Evidence

  • When a brand posts more of its own content, sales respond more strongly than likes, comments, and shares do (a sales elasticity of about .35 vs. .14 for engagement); the study tests the gap formally, and it holds — sales respond roughly 2.6 times as strongly.
  • The effect is usually positive but not always: engagement drops in about 37% of cases and sales in about 16%, so the wrong post can hurt the number it targets.
  • The best content depends on the goal: emotional posts drive likes and shares, while product and how-to posts drive sales.
  • Discount and deal posts are the weakest sales content, and no stronger for sales than emotional posts.
  • Smaller follower communities show a larger percentage sales response to extra posts than huge ones do; a ceiling effect caps that relative gain for big brands, which still sell more in absolute terms.
  • New products get a far larger sales response from owned posts than established ones, roughly six times.
  • On platforms that have opened up paid advertising, owned posts show a weaker sales association than on platforms that haven't, a cross-study pattern rather than a before/after test.

Key takeaway

Your own social posts move sales harder than they move engagement, and the content that wins sales is not the content that wins likes.

Source

Liadeli, G., Sotgiu, F., & Verlegh, P. W. J. (2023). A meta-analysis of the effects of brands' owned social media on social media engagement and sales. Journal of Marketing, 87(3), 406–427. https://doi.org/10.1177/00222429221123250

Read the paper ↗

Evidence strength: Strong, based on 1,641 owned-social-media results pooled from 86 studies across 31 industries, 14 platforms, and 17 countries (data 2007–2019). These are average sales-and-engagement response patterns, not profit or return-on-investment figures, so they guide where to allocate budget and what to post rather than a direct profit calculation.