By Mark Kersteen - October 7th, 2014

Not too long ago, 'Social Media' was little more than a buzzword. Social was the domain of gurus and ninjas. In less than a decade, it's become integral to any marketing function. Social isn't going anywhere.

Now, brands everywhere are gearing up to get more from what used to be just a cheap alternative to mainstream marketing.

Our sister company, Useful Social Media, recently did a large-scale survey of social media users. We took a look at the over 500 brand marketers in the bunch to come up with the numbers below. Here's a comprehensive overview of the ways your fellow marketers are using social media right now:

How_Marketers_Are_Using_Social_Media

 

The Bottom Line:

Social Isn't Stopping: Budgets are going up for about half of marketers. Yet even where budgets aren't going up, social is still becoming more important to marketing strategy.

Room to Grow: Only a small minority of marketers feel their companies are fully taking advantage of their channels.

Not (Yet) Measuring Up: Fewer marketers feel like they're fully measuring the impact of their social media than those who don't. Measurement will need to improve before budgets and organizational buy-in do.

Social in the House: Most marketers get their social media done without the help of external partners. Bad news for consultants, mavens, and gurus. There are no signs of this trend stopping, either.

For more up-to-date insight on social, have a look at what we'll be covering at the Incite Summit: East.

You can check out USM's full white paper here.

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