60% of Marketers Measure New Leads to Gauge Revenue via Social

Awareness, a social marketing software company, recently released a report titled “The State of Social Media Marketing Report: 7 Major Findings & In-Depth Analysis.” Among the many interesting findings in the report is that 6 in 10 marketers look at new leads as a metric of revenue generation from social media.

The report starts by pointing out that 78 percent of marketers point to better customer engagement as the top business object for social media, followed by 51 percent who said revenue generation, 47 percent who said better customer experience and 41 percent who said increased thought leadership.

So it would follow that most companies would be keenly interested in measuring their social media marketing efforts, right? Awareness found quite a different story, as just 47 percent of respondents said they are measuring their social media marketing. Another 15 percent said they aren’t, while 38 percent said they’re planning to in 2012.

Clearly, there’s an opportunity for companies who have products and services to help marketers with this task. For companies seeking to provide their aid to marketers, they should note that 57 percent of them see measuring ROI as the top challenge for social marketing, followed by managing and growing their social presence (44 percent), monitoring social media (34 percent), and integrating social with lead generation and sales (34 percent).

Awareness also found that social marketers are starting to measure value being driven by social media marketing efforts. According to the report, 62 percent of respondents measure new customers when it metrics used for revenue generation through social media, while 60 percent measure new leads, 59 percent measure sales, and 42 percent measure individual social profiles of fans and followers.

Facebook is the top social platform for marketers, with 89 percent using the social networking giant this year, followed by 84 percent on Twitter, 77 percent on LinkedIn and 71 percent on YouTube.

Awareness also found that 54 percent of respondents don’t have an allocated budget for social marketing, depending solely on manpower. “With no money or resources behind them, most social marketing initiatives remain small, siloed, with little to no direct impact on key business drivers such as leads and sales.”

A separate study from Webmarketing123 found that 21 percent of B2B marketers and 25 percent of B2C said social media has the biggest impact on lead generation.