Ever since I began writing this column, social media has played a significant role in its content. From ways in which advisors can best utilize social media in compliance with the new FINRA rules,  to tips on how to make the most of the time you spend on such activities, I have covered a breadth of material regarding this new sector of marketing.

But throughout all of the coverage I’ve given social media, I have continued to search for proof that it actually works—real, hard numbers showing the success (or lack thereof) of marketing through social media platforms. Despite all of the media attention and growing popularity Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have garnered, there is surprisingly little research on their success rates.

One likely culprit for this lack of quantifiable proof is sure to be the debate over how to define social media’s “success.” Is it how many “fans” a Facebook page has? The number of visitors or commenters to a blog? Or is it more profit-based, such as the number of clients you have added in accordance with your social media efforts that quarter?

I recently came across a firm that is not only measuring what works and what doesn’t in the social universe, they are monitoring it within the financial sector.

At the beginning of this year, Media Logic, a marketing firm that has worked with big-name financial institutions for years, monitored all social media activity (including Facebook pages, blogs and Twitter streams) of 35 financial institutions. The firms they observed ranged from small banks like Citizens Bank to large institutions such as Citi Bank and Bank of America.

To preface, this research isn’t perfect. First, Media Logic defined “success” as a combination of the number of people who were fans of the company’s Facebook page, how many followed its Twitter stream and the implied activity of its blog. This may or may not be how you prefer to measure success of your social media actions.

Second, Media Logic did not monitor small independent advisory firms, focusing instead on banks and financial institutions large and small. Hence, for some of you, this information won’t be specific enough for you to utilize, though I did touch on which strategies would be best for such firms (more on that later).

That said, this is the most comprehensive research I have found on the topic so far.

To begin, Media Logic identified six types of social media strategies that financial institutions are using right now:

Brand Engagement Forums: These are open forums in which the company says, “Hi, we’re the brand, be my buddy,” either through a company Facebook page or Twitter stream. They provide little or no incentive to interact with the company, other than simply coming aboard the company ship.

These forums are almost universally disasters, says Ron Ladouceur, executive vice president of Media Logic. “Large institutions can’t fake being small. There was a tendency in 2009 for large banks to try to humanize themselves by posting Facebook pages or having a chatty Twitter stream, and those that did ran into a tremendous amount of consumer anger. People lost a lot of money in 2009 and then there was a big backlash against the bailouts, and hence the large banks were brand-challenged. Them saying, ‘we’re your buddy,’ drew nothing but negative and violent comments.”

One exception to this disaster is small firms that are local enough to be embraced by the community as a peer. Small independent advisory firms, for example, often have enough of a connection with the local community to succeed with this strategy. In order to build their brand identity, they should be sure to include plenty of community keywords—such as names of cities, towns and local establishments—that will help boost their searchability by members of the community looking for a new financial advisor.

News feeds: These are forums that allow zero consumer engagement. Think of Facebook pages that don’t allow comments or Twitter feeds that are used strictly for PR announcements.

After seeing the negative comments customers posted to their brand engagement forums, many companies switched over to such news feeds. While there is little downside to this type of social media use, it misses out on one big opportunity. “They’re not taking advantage of opportunities social media provides for engagement and remarketing,” Ladouceur says. “You get no networking effect, besides the news media that follows it.”