Does Social Media Engage and Activate their audiences?

The question posed by my co-blogger Black Jack Vane (also known as Kalle Heinonen) was an interesting one. Is social media engaing the folk using the services? Take YouTube or FaceBook? Are these good channels to advertise your products and services on? Do they engage and activate your audience?

Rather than give my opinion I decided to check out if anyone with any data had any idea. MediaBuyerPlanner says that social media sites are attractive to retailers. Heavy users (top 20 percent) of social-networking sites are significantly more likely than average to visit leisure-oriented retail site categories, such as apparel, music, jewelry/luxury goods/accessories and consumer electronics, according to a comScore Segment Metrix study.

Comscore goes onto say

There appears to be a natural synergy between the leisure categories and social networking sites. People typically enjoy sharing their experiences with these products, whether it¢‚¬„¢s to talk about their new iPhone or the pair of designer jeans they just bought. Social networking sites offer the venue for those conversations to occur

If we take the data as a basis of loose fact (it’s never 100% accurate) then we can confidently say that targeting the heavy users of social media for the kinds of products that include Music, Jewelry/Luxury Goods/Accessories, Apparel, Tickets, Consumer Electronics, Sports/Outdoor, Computer Software, Books, Movies, Computer Hardware will be well received by heavy social media users.

So it would appear at least for retail consumer sites “yes” is the answer to the question.