Beyond the Click, a new survey of 500 consumers by cloud-based Activity and Participant Management™ leader ACTIVE Network, sheds some light on the growing influence of social media and how it may actually affect consumer behavior. More specifically, its results are instructive for the thousands of business opportunity, franchise and other small business owners (and those seeking to discover business opportunities) who are currently or planning on engaging in social media marketing activities or may want to, but who are also unsure about which platforms are the most appropriate for their purposes.

Focused primarily on today’s five top social platforms—Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and Pinterest—the survey yielded the following valuable insights:

• More than 50% of users have taken offline action as a direct result of online interaction.

• The three most popular offline actions taken include: 1) contacting a person directly, 2) attending an event or 3) participating in an activity such as a sport or class.

• Forty-four percent of smartphone users report having used a mobile app to help them achieve a personal goal, such as improving their health, fitness, knowledge, education or appearance.

• Of the top five platforms, Facebook drives the most offline actions, leading to the most direct contacts or in-person meetings as well as prompting the most charitable donations. It also generates considerable activity in the way of participation—44% having indicated they have attended a class, sport or other form of activity, and 58% noting they’ve attended an event.

• While the offline actions of Twitter users are less than for others, the type of engagement it does generate is very active in nature, with 25% actually participating in an activity and 30% attending an event.

• LinkedIn is most successful in prompting users to change jobs, followed by Pinterest.

• And finally, Pinterest drives the most respondents to make an actual lifestyle change, just ahead of Facebook.