Social media marketing can help businesses improve sales, but they must target the correct audience, according to a new survey.

Only 9 percent of web users have Liked brand pages on Facebook, despite an overall increase in focus on social media marketing campaigns, a report from Crowd Science said. While businesses may struggle to get Likes for their pages, the survey makes clear that consumers are willing to interact with individual pieces of social content.

According to the survey results, wall posts and photos are the most popular social media content with 16 percent saying they have Liked each. Videos (12 percent), non-brand pages (10 percent) and branded pages (9 percent) rounded out the top five.

For businesses relying on social media marketing, targeting younger audiences is the easiest way to succeed, according to the study. Teenagers most frequently Like a brand page with 23 percent reporting they would. Young adults, between 18 and 34, are likely the marketers’ prime target , though, as they have more buying power than teens. Brands should be pleased to learn that Crowd Science found this audience tends to Like video content and pictures.

The numbers indicate that users are highly selective when giving a company this mark of approval, and marketers should note that each Like counts as social audiences are more likely to convert than the web population at large. Brafton recently reported that 9.2 percent of socially engaged web users convert, whereas just 5 percent of web users at-large make purchases. 

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.