Social ROI for business: index of 500 e-tailers shows social engagement doubles revenue growth

The Echo System, a company that helps brands measure the impact of their social-network initiatives, released its Echo Rank results for June today. The results show that online retailers with solid “social” customer engagement strategies vastly outperform laggards.

In fact, the top five companies doubled the revenue growth of the average company in the index. For the 500 companies in the index, the average revenue growth since 2010 was 20.4 percent. But the top five companies averaged a blistering 45 percent revenue growth.

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And companies that increased their Echo Rank most over just the past two months saw year-over-year revenue growth of almost 30 percent.

“Our rankings show that the companies investing in social and particularly social commerce are seeing the largest gains in revenues,” says Echo System chief executive Lance Neuhauser.

According to the Echo Rank index, the top five companies turning social into sales are:

1. FansEdge (sports fan branded products)
2. Barney’s New York (designer clothing)
3. Turn5 (runs AmericanMuscle.com, a car parts site)
4. GameStop (world’s largest gamer store)
5. Fossil (watches, handbags, fashion accessories)

Echo Rank tracks 500 e-commerce companies across various social indicators such as user engagement, social integration, and site performance. Those include factors as diverse as follower/fan count, likes and retweeets, integration of social into a company’s site and services, and how effective a website is at converting shoppers into buyers.

It appears that tight social integration can even trump site conversion performance, since Turn5, coming in at number three, has a site performance score of only seven. But its social score, which is a measure of how well it engages fans online, is a perfect 100.

Bass Pro fishing and sporting good retailer, 1-800-Flowers, and lingerie legend Frederick’s of Hollywood round out the top ten.

Notable fails in the top 500 include Aeropostale at #491, NASCAR.com at 428, and Best Buy at #215.

And the full top 10:

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Image credit: Allies Interactive Services Pvt. Ltd./ShutterStock