EMarketer have recently released a report outlining the most effective social media platform for advertisers in terms of ROI. As expected they have crowned Facebook the most effective out of the big three. The decision was made by US Brand and Agency executives so the outcomes could be slightly different if the studies were to be done in the UK.

The executives placed the platforms on a scale of A+-F scoring Facebook a B+ and Pinterest a B. So even though Facebook has been crowned the most effective, the new to advertising platform Pinterest wasn't far behind. When you set up social advertisements one of your objectives might be to retarget people who have either been visiting your site, or those who have been searching for related key terms and according to this report that is the platforms key strength. Executives said when interviewed "Marketers consider Facebook an extremely sophisticated targeted advertising platform, while Pinterest benefits from its strong connections with ecommerce and purchase intent." 197133

Out of the 29 companies that took part in this report the majority did agree that whilst targeting was a great component within Facebook it does still have some growing to do. Measuring was apparently one of those components; a way in which marketers can measure 'social media advertising on their bottom line'.

Away from Facebook the executives marked Twitter with a strong B for creativity, ad targeting, measurement and analytics and building brand awareness. Video marketing was mentioned in the report and how Facebook might soon take over some ad spend from YouTube. They marked Twitter with a B- for video as they weren't entirely sure whether this is a platform that users generally want to watch video.

From this report, it is easy to see the shift in popularity and which platforms marketers will consider more when thinking about social advertising.

You can read the full report in more detail here.