Earlier this year it was revealed that Facebook was the most popular social network for event marketers. The research, conducted by Constant Contact, revealed that 90% of event marketers prefer Facebook. At the time it kinda surprised me, but I suppose working in the B2B world for the last few years that is to be expected.
You can imagine my surprise therefore when Eventbrite released some figures today revealing the true value of a share on various social networks and lo and behold, Facebook again triumphed. Apparently each time an event is shared on Facebook it's worth £2.25 to the organiser, compared to £1.80 on Twitter and £1.24 on LinkedIn.
Eventbrite events have an easy to use social integration so it's simple for people to share with their network that they're attending a particular event. The integration is so smooth that Facebook is now the leading source of traffic to Eventbrite.
"Social lets you reach a much more targeted group of people, so without knowing it at the start we stumbled across a business that could really use social media to grow.” Eventbrite's VP of marketing Tamara Mendelsohn said.
Having used Eventbrite a few times for events, the research raises a few questions.
Firstly they don't provide any breakdown of the stats by vertical, so it's not possible to see if Facebook wins for B2B as well as B2C or in particular industries. After all, if we're trying to gauge which social networks are going to give us the best return on our time and money this information is key.
Secondly they don't reveal whether sharing on Facebook is more valuable because sharing on Facebook is that much easier. The integration between Facebook and Eventbrite is really good. LinkedIn for instance isn't so tightly integrated. So is this simply a case that people find it easier to share on Facebook, therefore it can appear more valuable? If you're not using Eventbrite for instance the results could be very different.
As is often the case with research as PR it often raises more questions than it answers.
