• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, July 26, 2013

By some measures, Twitter appears to be pulling away as a more useful tool for brands and their search for useful marketing content.

Critically, new research shows that businesses are turning to Twitter more than Facebook for real-time social content, with 93% of respondents curating social activity from Twitter compared to 89% from Facebook.

Impairing Google’s broader social aspirations, only 50% of businesses report aggregating and displaying YouTube videos, according to a new study from social software startup Livefyre.

Perhaps boding well for Facebook -- at least, indirectly -- 41% of businesses report curating pictures from Facebook-owned Instagram. Regardless of what platform marketers choose, social media has established itself as fertile ground for valuable content.

“One of the major challenges that marketers face today is creating great content,” said Jordan Kretchmer, cofounder and CEO of Livefyre. “Social curation enables marketers to tap into what people are already saying about your brand … and then use it to promote their products in an … authentic way.”

Brand executives spoke well of social media during the OMMA RTB conference, on Thursday. Gary Milner, director and global digital marketing manager at Lenovo, agreed that social is a valuable source of content. “How do we get extra content… and deliver more than just the impression?” -- That’s the question every brand has to ask itself, today, Milner said.

Overall, Livefyre found that 82% of businesses have increased user engagement as a result of curating social activity about their brand, and integrating it into their Web sites and mobile apps.

Plus, 58% of respondents reported using social curation to connect directly with their audience, while 57% of respondents said they have seen an increase in site traffic as a result.

Of the 73% of survey respondents using real-time, social applications -- including sharing widgets, real-time comments, live blogs and live chat applications -- 88% have increased user engagement as a result, Livefyre found. In that group, 54% cited connecting directly with their audience as a key benefit, followed by 42% citing increases in average visit duration, or time-on-site.

Also of note, 41% of survey respondents reported seeing an increase in site traffic as a result of making their sites more social.

For its research, Livefyre said it gathered feedback from more than 200 executives across various industries.