Did I tell you about The Value of Social Media Report by Econsultancy?

Over the past three weeks, I’ve been to SES London 2010, OMS 2010 in San Diego, and SMX West 2010 in Santa Clara. As The Grateful Dead would say, “What a long strange trip it’s been.”

I’ve reported most of the top stories from those three events:

• 1,500 attendees watch Avinash Kaushik, Google Analytics Evangelist, kick off SES London 2010
• Bryan Eisenberg shares 21 secrets of top converting websites at SES London 2010
• Jim Sterne tackles social media metrics at SES London 2010
• Sneak previews of Online Marketing Summit 2010 and SES San Diego
• How to create, optimize, and promote video on YouTube
• Peter Norvig offers an insider’s look at Google Research during SMX West

But I think I forgot to tell you about The Value of Social Media Report that Rebecca Lieb, US Vice President at Econsultancy, presented at OMS 2010. It was the first thing that I told my staff about when I visited our San Francisco office this past week.

So, shame of me for leaving you out of the loop. My sincerest apologies. Let me try to make amends by sharing the highlights now.

The Value of Social Media Report looks at how extensively social media marketing is being carried out by organizations, the tactics they are using, and the business objectives they are trying to achieve. And, in case you need a definition, Econsultancy says social media marketing includes the use of social networking sites and on-site activity including blogging, wikis, user-generated content, ratings and reviews.

The 59-page report is based on an online survey of more than 400 predominantly US-based client-side marketers and agency respondents, which took place in December 2009 and January 2010.

Among the findings, are these highlights:

• Facebook is the Web property mostly commonly used in social media campaigns, with 85% of companies using this site as part of their marketing strategy. This is followed by Twitter (77%), LinkedIn (58%) and YouTube (49%).
• More than three out of five respondents (61%) say their organizations are “poor” (34%) or “very poor” (27%) at measuring ROI.
• More than three out of five companies (61%) say that they “have experimented with social media, but not done that much.”
• Almost one out of three companies (32%) do not spend anything on social media marketing and a further 36% spend under $5,000 a year.
• Almost one out of three respondents (32%) are getting less than 1x the return on investment from social media.

Social media was also discussed at the other two events I attended over the past three weeks.

For example, Mel Carson of the Microsoft Advertising blog interviewed Lisa Myers of Verve Search at SES London 2010 about her solo presentation on social media 101. Myers said any novices interested in implementing a social media campaign should begin by outlining their objectives, their goals, targets, and their audience.

Myers added that it’s not all about Facebook and Twitter, and urges social media marketers to learn the role these new platforms can play and how they should be used. She emphasized that beginning users of social media applications should not get carried away by the social media tidal wave and should take the time to research their market audience before they can expect social media to add sufficient value.

Check out Carson’s video interview below.

The social media tidal wave with Lisa Myers, Verve Search at SES London 2010

There is a Search & Social track at SES New York 2010, which will be held March 22-26. And there will be a couple of sessions on search and social media in the OMS track.

Plus, Stoney deGeyter of Pole Position Marketing and Jennifer Evans Laycock, Social Media Strategist, will be teaching a training workshop entitled “Building a Content Strategy to Maximize Your Search & Social Efforts” on the Friday after SES New York 2010.

So, there will be additional opportunities for you to get your arms around this topic. Yes, yes, it’s like getting your arms around a tidal wave. But, even a long strange trip starts with a single step.

As always, I should disclose that SES is a client of my agency. But trust me on the need to learn more about social media.

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