Even as 69 percent of consumers follow brands on Twitter, most want to go to a company's website to convert.

A report from AYTM Market Research found that consumers enjoy interacting with brands on Twitter, but many also want to see website content from these companies. According to the study, 69 percent of Twitter users follow brands on the platform. Twenty-six percent of respondents said they monitor the activity of at least 10 companies on the network.

As Twitter has evolved, more organizations have made it a part of their social media marketing strategy. Consumers have adapted as well, following more companies as Twitter consistently provides more options for brands to demonstrate their messaging and share content.

AYTM found that consumers who follow these organizations engage frequently, clicking on relevant content, responding to posts and sharing Tweets with their own followers. While just 7.6 percent said they “always” click on links included in Twitter content, 34.4 percent said they engage with it at least half the time, and 17.6 percent do so “most of the time.”

This doesn’t mean that people ignore content on social networks, so much as they’re more likely to convert and learn after clicking through to a website.

More than anything, consumers respond to links and other social content when it’s relevant to them. Not every Tweet is going to engage each follower, but consistently sharing information that appeals to different followers will drive traffic. In fact, 63.5 percent of respondents said website content is more useful than Twitter. This doesn’t mean that people ignore content on social networks, so much as they’re more likely to convert and learn after clicking through to a website.

For any company active on social media, sharing engaging content is the only way to drive sales from a presence in the channel. Whether it’s Twitter or any other social platform, links to site content give users a reason to convert. Social media serves as their path to the content. Earlier this year, Brafton cited a report from the Content Marketing Institute’s Joe Pulizzi that urged marketers to view each web channel as a point in the same conversion funnel. Understanding that social media drives exposure for content marketing and further guides a prospect toward conversion helps make each marketing channel more effective for companies.

More than 26 percent of respondents to AYTM’s survey said that social media and a company’s official website are equally useful. Keeping users engaged on both can help consistently build web presence and drive sales.

Joe Meloni is Brafton's former Executive News and Content Writer. He studied journalism at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and has written for a number of print and web-based publications.