If you read or listen to the news, you have probably heard about financial troubles at major social media platforms, including LinkedIn, Meta (owner of Facebook and Instagram) and X (formerly Twitter). In 2024, LinkedIn let go of 202 employees, and in 2025 Meta laid off 3,600 employees. TikTok also announced a 10 percent workforce cut (300 people), and X currently has less than 2,900 employees after layoffs in 2022.
What do these layoffs mean for how you should allocate your digital marketing budget? While companies may be downsizing, consumer’s social media addiction isn’t going away. The average American spends two hours and 15 minutes every day on social media, according to Statista. Continue reading to find out how effective social media marketing is today.
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ToggleThe state of social media marketing
In the 2025 Social Media Marketing Industry Report, 83 percent of marketers said that their social media marketing gave more exposure to their businesses, 73 percent found it increased traffic, 65 percent offered that it generated leads, 62 percent felt that it developed loyal fans and 52 percent said that it had improved sales. So, social media marketing is still producing positive results as a whole. But as with anything technology-related, things have shifted and it is important to keep up to date.
Which social media platforms produce the best results?
When you are choosing which social media platforms to spend time and money on, you want to select the ones that will give your company the best results. Every business has its own target market and goals, so you will need to do some experimentation to see what works well for you. [Read related: Why your business should use multiple social media platforms]
Below is a table showing what percentage of marketers said they are getting positive results for each platform, by marketing goal, according to Social Media Marketing’s report. These broad results might influence your social media decisions.
|
Goal |
|
|
|
YouTube |
X |
TikTok |
Threads |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Increase sales |
31% |
23% |
14% |
17% |
9% |
16% |
8% |
|
Increase exposure |
63% |
69% |
65% |
70% |
67% |
73% |
67% |
|
Generate leads |
39% |
31% |
38% |
22% |
18% |
18% |
11% |
|
Boost traffic |
41% |
38% |
33% |
37% |
31% |
29% |
24% |
|
Develop loyal fans |
32% |
33% |
24% |
23% |
17% |
21% |
15% |
This efficacy is reflected in the number of marketers using Facebook (86 percent) and Instagram (79 percent) compared to the other social networks, LinkedIn (65 percent), YouTube (51 percent), X (31 percent), TikTok (28 percent) and Threads (9 percent)
B2B vs. B2C
Your social media strategy will also be impacted by whether you are selling to consumers or to other businesses. Here are the usage numbers for each social network on this criteria.
|
|
|
|
|
YouTube |
X |
TikTok |
Threads |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Business-to-consumer (B2C) |
91% |
86% |
55% |
53% |
31% |
32% |
9% |
|
Business-to-business (B2B) |
83% |
75% |
86% |
51% |
32% |
24% |
8% |
As you might expect, LinkedIn is the social network of choice for B2B marketing while Facebook is nearly universally used for B2C marketing. Facebook and Instagram have become more important for B2B marketing in the last year, with their combined share of B2B marketing dollars increasing from 43 percent in 2023 to 50 percent in 2024.
Trends
It is important to stay abreast of trends over time so you can adjust your social strategy as needed. Overall, Facebook users are declining in number. When asked what they consider to be the most important social media platform, marketers have shown less confidence in Facebook over time, with responses shrinking from 59 percent in 2020 to only 44 percent in 2024. LinkedIn’s prominence has grown from 14 percent to 21 percent, as has Instagram’s, from 17 percent to 25 percent. YouTube has increased from 5 percent to 6 percent.
Twelve percent of marketers said they will be decreasing organic activities on Facebook while 38 percent of marketers plan on increasing their organic Facebook activities. In the next 12 months, 33 percent of B2B marketers and 42 percent of B2C marketers will also increase their activities on Facebook.
Social ads
Facebook reigns supreme when it comes to the value marketers place on paid advertising, with 47 percent saying it is the top social ad choice. Instagram came in a distant second with 14 percent saying it was the best place to advertise, followed by LinkedIn with 8 percent. An interesting note is that 25 percent said they don’t use paid social media ads.
“Businesses are also using retargeting ads, which show specific content to people who have already taken action in some way,” said Sarah Remesch, digital and social media marketing expert and founder of 270M. “Natural content in ads is currently very effective. This means ads that resemble organic content and influencer partnerships tend to perform better because they blend into a user’s feed, making the experience feel less intrusive.”
Why social media marketing is still beneficial today
Now that you know that social media marketing still works, let’s dive deeper into what it can do for your brand.
Expands awareness
Social media is a relatively low-cost way to increase brand awareness in the market because of the interconnectedness of its users. In addition to the exposure your products will get from any paid advertising, you also benefit from your followers’ sharing and reposting and can even profit from non-following customers who post about your company on social media. Social media contests and sweepstakes with highly shareable content can give you even more exposure to new potential customers.
“Social media is the only media platform left [where brands can] build mass awareness,” said Quynh Mai, founder and CEO of Qulture. “Outdoor, print and even TV are now easily ignored or skipped. By being in the feed and integrated into the user’s scroll, brand integration is most seamless on social media.”
Builds an online community
Many social media marketers believe that online brand community building is essential to success. Consumers can get a feel of a company’s mission and attitude on social media. More people are starting to seek out brands on social media rather than search engines.
Grows website traffic
When customers need more information about your company and your products, your website is the best resource. It is also the place where you have everything in place to capture leads and make online sales. While you are probably investing in paid search or SEO to increase website traffic, social media is another great way to send people to your website.
“Social media can drive significant website traffic through a variety of link placements including bios, stories and captions,” Remesch said. “These placements give your audience direct pathways to your website and have already established a relationship with the consumer before visiting which increases the likelihood they will convert on [the] web.”
The traffic you get from social also tends to be more qualified since social followers are already familiar with your brand and are more likely to buy.
Generates leads
Since there are so many different forms of content that you can post on social media, it is a great way to inform and educate potential customers about product features and benefits. Social media marketing tactics can even generate leads. For instance, it is easy to prompt them to take immediate action by filling out a web form to receive more information.
“Meta lead forms and Stories or LinkedIn’s lead gen ads make it seamless for consumers to sign up without ever leaving the app,” Remesch said. “Because these tools are designed to help capture leads, they should be widely implemented as part of your strategy.”
Prospects can feel comfortable reaching out to you because they have had the opportunity to view the social proof provided by other users and learn about their (hopefully positive) experiences with your brand. “Social media platforms are filled with user-generated content from influencers and real people, leading to solid recommendations that lead to sales,” Mai said. “People trust people, so [they] are more ready to purchase from an endorsement or demonstration online than any ad.”
Increases sales
Social media is the evolution of ecommerce. Social media allows you to show products being used in real life, supports user-generated content and allows you to leverage influencers. Marketers found that the more years of experience they have, the larger sales they have. About half of marketers who’ve used social media for two or more years said it helps them increase sales, according to the Social Media Marketing report. Of those who have used social media for five years, 47 percent of marketers agreed it increased sales. Only 13 percent disagreed.
Remesch said that several social media platforms offer shop sections in app, which can also elevate sales. This means companies who sell their products on each platform, in addition to their website, can increase purchases. “Social commerce is growing with in-app shopping experiences from Instagram and TikTok,” she said. “The entire shopping experience can take place in a single location now from discovery to purchase and therefore shortens the customer journey to end conversion.”
>> Learn More: Reasons to Use Instagram for Your Business
Provides faster customer service
Social media provides an additional, and often faster, way to handle customer questions and problems. According to The 2025 Sprout Social Index, consumers said businesses should make personalized customer service their first social media priority. “Customers expect quick replies and social media has become the first place they turn [to] visit for support,” Remesch said. “Direct messages and comments allow businesses to offer quick remedies and publicly in a way that shows transparency to other users.”
The report also found that 30 percent of consumers are going to increase their social media usage in 2025. Furthermore, the Index data showed that 73 percent of social media users will buy from a competitor if a brand doesn’t respond on social media.
Empowers marketers with AI
With AI taking over users’ social feeds, marketers are now faced with the choice of whether to incorporate it or not. Eighty-seven percent see AI as an opportunity to improve their work, whereas 10 percent see it as a threat. But the majority (51 percent) are overwhelmed with how quickly AI is changing the industry.
This shift isn’t just about adopting a new tool, as it’s reshaping how marketers plan, produce and distribute content at every level. “The AI-powered algorithms are rewarding businesses who connect with current events or trends by putting them into the feed or ‘For You Page’ and giving them organic reach,” Mai said.
The Social Media Marketing report also found that marketers view AI as a positive outcome. When splitting marketers into B2B and B2C categories, 90 percent of B2B and 84 percent of B2C marketers see it optimistically.
How to know if social media marketing is working for you
To know whether or not your efforts are proving successful, you need to measure your ROI. You have to know where your time (and money) is going and you can use analytics to assist with that goal. Here are a few things you should do:
Set up Google Analytics
One of the simplest ways to see the correlation between your social engagement and sales is to use Google Analytics. The popular web analytics tool can show you which social networks are driving the most website traffic, which content on your site attracts the most social media traffic and what kinds of posts at what time of day lead to the most conversions.
“For businesses aiming to drive website traffic, using Google Analytics and Shopify can show you web data segmented by social marketing efforts,” Remesch said. “Some metrics to review include conversion rates, time on site, bounce rate, and the number of actions such as filling out a form or making a purchase.”
Start by setting up Advanced Segments. This allows you to set up filters for tracking data from the social networks you choose, such as Facebook, X and LinkedIn. Then, once it’s configured, you can view all of your referral traffic from social sources in one place. You can break these down in any way you like, from tracking individual social sites or collections of sites. You could lump all the image-based social networks together, such as Pinterest and Instagram, to see how your visual strategy is faring, for instance.
Use Google Analytics UTM parameters
You can also track how individual links you share on social networks are performing by using Google Analytics UTM parameters. This method is especially helpful if you’re running ads on Facebook, for example, and want to see how many clicks you get — and how many of those clicks convert. UTM parameters are tags that are added to the end of a specific URL to enable tracking and source attribution. You can build them using the Google Campaign URL Builder.
“Certain KPIs [Key Performance Indicators] are meant to measure brand awareness such as reach and impressions while [totals] are for engagement such as likes, comments, shares, saves and click,” Remesch said. “Engagement metrics are stronger indicators of performance because they include a secondary action and signal your social marketing is resonating with your audience.”
Review your data to see what is and isn’t working
Once you have the results of your social media marketing, you will know what you are doing well and where you need to improve. Reallocate your effort and money to areas that are giving you good results and, over time, your ROI will improve.
“Ultimately, the best way to know if your social media marketing is working is consistently reviewing your data and reporting both in platform and on your website, aligning your goals and optimizing based on your findings,” Remesch said.
Amanda Hoffman and Jayson DeMers contributed to the reporting and writing in this article.
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