I’ve written a lot about using social media marketing to support your business or nonprofit. A recent survey done by Michael A. Stelzner and sponsored by Social Media Examiner entitled 2011 Social Media Marketing Industry Report: How Marketers Are Using Social Media to Grow Their Businesses gives us some new insights on what tools marketers are using and what benefits they are getting. There is a lot of information here and over the next few blogs I’ll be looking into some of the findings.

The study surveyed 3,342 marketers working as independents, for their own businesses, and for small, medium and large businesses and organizations. The survey includes people who are just starting out in social media marketing as well as those who have worked in the industry for longer than three years. Significantly these results show what people working in the trenches, so to speak, are seeing and doing rather than pundits and experts. Here are the benefits of social media marketing according to the marketers themselves.

Increased Exposure and Traffic

88% of all marketers say that social media has increased exposure for their business and 72% report increased traffic to their websites. Significantly nearly all of those who have been using social media for more than one year have shown increased exposure for their business and traffic to their website. Even 81% of those who have been doing social media for a short time and put a minimal amount of effort into it have seen improvements. Interestingly small businesses with less than 100 employees were more likely to report greater exposure due to social media marketing.

Search Engine Rankings

72% of the marketers reported improved search engine rankings as a result of social media marketing. Predictably those who have been doing social media marketing longer or devote more time each week have seen larger increases in their ranking. Part of this is may be that more experienced marketers use blogs more than marketers just starting out and blogging has been shown to have a major positive impact on your search engine rankings. Another interesting result is business to business sites have achieved higher benefits (66%) as opposed to business to customer sites (59%).

Partnerships

Social media marketing also increases the likelihood of new business partnerships (56%). Again, those with more time invested have seen more benefits but an impressive 45% of those businesses with less than 12 months invested in social media marketing have reported new business partnerships. 61% of business to business companies have reported new partnerships as a result of social media marketing.

Generated Qualified Leads & Improved Sales

Exposure and partnerships are fine but the real purpose of social media marketing is to generate leads and get sales. Overall 51% of the respondents have reported an increase in leads and 43% have improved sales. If this study shows anything it shows that an investment of time pays off. 72% of those who have used social media marketing for at least three years have improved sales while all groups report the same results when they invest at least 11 hours per week in social media marketing. The self-employed and small businesses have achieved the highest benefits.

Conclusion

Social media marketing has a significant impact on traffic and site visitors, the crucial first step in building your business or cause. The numbers for actual sales are lower because while marketing can get someone to your site it does not necessarily get them to buy. That takes a number of other strategies such as landing pages content and conversion tactics. The most significant information for me from this study is that all the numbers improve the more time per week that the marketer devoted to social media. All the statistics improve over time. You need to spend time devoted to social media and you need to do it over an extended period. How much time are you committing to your social media marketing?

Image Media Partners is a social media consulting company that helps businesses and organizations plan, manage and execute their social media marketing plans. Contact us if you would like to know how we can help with your social media strategy.

Illustration credit: Michael A. Stelzner