Marketers that have to thus far relied on traditional media are now shifting their focus to encompass social media like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, which all provide pre-segmented consumer groups with no or little effort (and money) from the marketing department. Blogs, from the humble beginnings of people rambling on about their personal lives are becoming a channel for business to promote and reinforce their transparency to their customer groups and stakeholders.

Research, done Michael Stelzner of the Social Media Success Summit, shows the hierarchy of social media tools as utilised by SME’s and corporate alike.

Experience with social media is the main factor in deciding which tools are used and to what extent they are being utilised.  The research shows that Twitter is the leader in social media tools with blogs in 2nd, followed by Linkedin, Facebook and YouTube.

So now you know what everyone else is using, but how do you decide how much to invest yourself? The research shows that it will depend on your experience with the social media. 72% of respondents from the research had only just started using social media or had only been doing it for a couple of months. Their investment varied from 2 hours a week to 10 hours a week. For the more experienced, and arguably, the more successful in the social media realm, the time invested jumped to 20+ hours a week. So how do you justify allocating resources to social media, when it will take up nearly 45% of your working week? The table below should speak for itself.

So whether you are just starting out or are a fully fledged guru in social media, the ROI speaks for itself. All it takes is some time, a communication strategy, the relevant social platform and a system to deliver your message.