ComScore is getting ready to release a new study on Facebook’s social marketing and they plan to do it at the upcoming ARF Audience Measurement 7.0 conference in New York, along with the release of their new white paper, The Power of Like 2: How Social Marketing Works.

What they’ve discovered is that Facebook’s brand exposure actually does have a significantly positive effect on subsequent purchasing.

Contrary to popular belief, click through rates are a relatively weak indicator of performance and what they call, “view-through” may be what’s of more interest when it comes to brand impression. What they found is the impact or impression is the result of a cumulative effect taking place over weeks or months after constantly being exposed to the message or brand (or both).

ComScore wants to make it clear that previous polls assessing ad effectiveness overlook the unreliability factor when people report on their own behaviors. They point out a Reuters headline claiming,“Facebook Comments, Ads Don’t Sway Most Users: Poll”.

ComScore comments:

“In this particular case, it appears that the research method used was a survey, which asked users about whether or not they had ever been influenced to purchase as a result of exposure on Facebook.”

“While surveys can be useful in assessing ad effectiveness lifts across attitudinal dimensions such as brand awareness, favorability and purchase intent, people tend not to provide very accurate assessments of their own behavior. And their accuracy in recalling their own behavior over an extended period of time can be especially unreliable.”

“More importantly, people generally don’t like to believe that advertising actually has an effect on their behavior, even though time and time again various forms of advertising research have shown that it does.”

“It’s time to advance this discussion of marketing and advertising effectiveness, but doing so requires that the debate centers on meaningful measurement approaches, not on self-reported recollection.”

We’ll learn more next week after the report is published and the results are revealed at the upcoming conference in New York. In the meantime, pay close attention to those ads you’re constantly bombarded with and truly examine what role they play in shaping your opinions and attitudes.