If you didn’t get to read the recent study from Awareness on the State of Social Media Marketing, here is a quick summary of the points I found most interesting.

• Marketers plan to increase their presence across platforms (70%) and increase the frequency of content publishing (59%).
• Measuring ROI remains a top challenge, with 58% reporting it as an issue. Sadly, 76% reported using the number of fans/followers as a measure. Although that may be shifting, as 38% report using lead generation as a measure and 26% are tracking sales.
• Blogs are big and will continue to be. 28% expect to increase their investment in blogs. 91% of experienced social media marketers will be investing in blogs.

What the savvy marketers are doing

If the behavior of experienced social media marketers is a good indication of best practices, here’s what you should be doing:

• Investing in better platforms–64% of experience marketers
• Monitoring in real time–80% of experienced social media marketers do, versus only 20% of less experience marketers
• Using YouTube—Over 80% of experience marketers use it.
• Forums—68% of experienced marketers are already using forums, rather than just the big three.
• Flickr and Slideshare—Over 40% of experienced marketers are using them.

Commitment to social media—or lack of it 

Resources are lacking. Most organizations have between 1 and 3 people working on social media and 77% of marketers say they lack sufficient resources to do social media. 57% of marketers haven’t allocated budget to social media marketing.

Keeping abreast of the latest and greatest

A whopping 82% of these marketers reported using blogs as their main way to stay on top of social media knowledge and developments.

Where are marketers?

• For marketing: Facebook (87%), Twitter (83%), LinkedIn (76%), YouTube (66%), and blogs (57%)
• Close to 80% of marketers joined or used LinkedIn groups
• 43% of executives report participating in five LinkedIn groups

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