You’d think from the latest headline on Business Insider that social had made huge strides in driving retail sales.

It’s time for retailers to start paying close attention to social media

There’s only one problem with this assertion. Here’s the chart to back up the claim.

Yes, social has grown by almost 200% from dead last into dead last. 1.5% is hardly a blip on the map. In fact two of the worst performers, display advertising and affiliate marketing come in higher than social media. It might have been good if they had broken those two out so we could see apples to apples.

Either way, retail sales are driven by everything but social media. There’s no reason to ignore it, sure set up a Facebook page, tweet some tweets, but if you’re in retail you’d better focus on the top 3: direct, search and email.

I suppose BI has a vested interest in driving the social media story on social media, but the headline is more click bait than helpful business intelligence.

@jmacofearth (also seen on Google+: jmacofearth)

permalink: https://uber.la/2016/04/social-media-drive-retail/

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