ComScore and Facebook have just published a new report on the paid and earned effects of social marketing efforts. Titled, The Power of Like 2: How Social Marketing Works, it is second report in a series aimed at educating and instructing advertisers on how to best take advantage of and generate ROI with social marketing.

You might remember, ComScore revealed the results of their study last week claiming, Facebook ads do indeed have a positive affect on viewers when it comes time to purchase and select one brand over another. The key to effectiveness however, is repeated and prolonged exposure, such as one might experience on continual visits to the Facebook site.

Here’s what ComScore had to say about social marketing in their latest blog post:

For too long, brands’ focus on Fan acquisition as a primary indicator of success has ignored the ways in which social marketing actually works to achieve marketing objectives like reach, brand resonance, and ultimately sales. By understanding the core elements of maximizing reach on Facebook – Fan Reach, Engagement, and Amplification – brands can benchmark their performance against other brands and devise strategies to improve on these dimensions and deliver measurable social marketing ROI.

One example from the white paper illustrates these effects for Starbucks, one of the largest and most influential brands in the social media universe. Our research analyzed the effects of Starbucks earned media exposure on Facebook and the lift in Starbucks in-store purchase incidence in the four weeks following exposure. The results showed a statistically significant positive lift in purchase incidence in each of the four weeks following exposure, and an increasing cumulative lift during those time periods.

Why are these findings so significant? First, they provide quantifiable evidence that earned media exposure can be valuable in influencing consumer behavior – and specifically the sort of behaviors that brands most want to induce, such as purchase. Secondly, they demonstrate that there is a latent branding effect that continues to drive increasing lift in purchase behavior weeks following exposure. Both of these conclusions provide more evidence that Facebook can be very valuable as a branding medium.

While the effects of social media advertising and marketing are still evolving and being documented, this new study from ComScore in cooperation with Facebook is a valuable resource that could be used to help advertisers and marketers maximize their efforts on social platforms. As you have seen, tracking down the direct conversion from viewing to buying can be a complicated process, but ComScore seems pretty confident in their results.