This is the year of Social Media - says Marketing Sherpa

Marketing Sherpa recently asked its audience about social media – here is what they heard

The Marketing communication landscape has been changed permanently by Social Media and its ability to publicize conversations between consumers 68% agree.

Social Media and e-DMs to in-house lists are seeing increased budgets  (by 48% of marketers) and benefiting from of the tightened marketing budgets – CMOs are moving money away from TV/Radio (by 83% marketers) and Print(by 60% marketers )

Key hurdle is the lack of knowledgeable staff (46% of CMOs) and the inability to measure ROI (43%)

Marketers see Social media as a way to achieve a number of valuable objectives

93% see it as very or somewhat effective at building brand reputation
92% see it as very or somewhat effective at building brand awareness
87% see it as very or somewhat effective at improving search engine ranking
88% see it as very or somewhat effective at driving traffic to web
65% see it as very or somewhat effective at generating leads

Get the extract of the reports here