MARKETINGSHERPA — Summary: We wanted to find out the effectiveness of social media in terms of achieving various target business objectives, such as increasing brand or product awareness and increasing sales revenue. See the responses we received from more than 2,000 marketers in this week’s chart...

Rating the Effectiveness of Social Media in Terms of Objectives Achieved

HUBSPOT INBOUND INTERNET MARKETING BLOG — The data machine known as eMarketer published results from a recent Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and American Marketing Association (AMA) study. This "CMO Study" surveyed both B2B and B2C marketing executives to examine how they plan to change their budget allocation in the next 12 months as well as the next 5 years. The research results show that social media spending will be near 20 percent of marketing budgets in 2015. This is up from 3.4 percent for B2B product companies and 6.5 percent for B2B services companies in February 2010. Throughout the study, another trend surfaced...

HUBSPOT INBOUND INTERNET MARKETING BLOG — As a kid, when your mom told you to put on a scarf before heading out into the cold, it was probably easy for you to dismiss her advice. Hearing the same advice from a bundled-up friend, however, probably swayed your decision. The power of peer influence similarly controls the business world. In fact, the elasticity of word-of-mouth referrals is about 20 times higher than that for marketing events, a 2009 research report on the Effects of Word-of-Mouth Versus Traditional Marketing showed. Word-of-mouth marketing is more sustainable than media appearances and, as the study pointed out, "may be among the most effective of marketing communication strategies"...

THE SOCIAL TIMES — While big businesses such as Target, Coca-Cola, and Dell are already using social media effectively, small business owners are just starting -- often "because they should," not necessarily because they have a plan for generating business leads. Other owners who do have a plan don’t necessarily know how to measure social media ROI. If you’re still learning, pick a social medium, say Twitter, and consider the tips below...

EMARKETER — Pull marketing tactics such as search, blog and social media generate cheaper leads than more traditional outbound efforts, according to data from inbound online marketing platform HubSpot. The "2010 State of Inbound Marketing" report indicates that spending on lead generation is 60% less among companies that devote at least one-half of their budget to inbound marketing, compared with companies spending at least one-half of lead generation dollars on outbound tactics. The average cost per lead from inbound marketing was also significantly less...