That’s the question isn’t it.

According to a new report from the founder of SocialMediaExaminer.com, the results are a mixed bag:

While 90 percent of marketers now say that social media-related marketing is important for their business, nearly 25 percent are still in the dark when it comes to measuring its effect, according to the third annual Social Media Marketing Industry Report from Michael A. Stelzner, founder of SocialMediaExaminer.com.

Entrepreneur.com

Knowing whether your online marketing is working for your bottom line is what’s important. Companies can have all the flashy facebook and twitter pages in the world but if customers aren’t following the links and buying something, it’s kind of pointless. Style is one thing but style without substance is, unfortunately, an all-too-common occurrence for small businesses. It also may be one of the biggest reasons why small businesses are hesitant to “justify plowing resources into something that you’re not sure is working”.

At Cote, LLC we work with your web team to determine whether your online ad dollars are translating into exposure, sales and both. There are several different ways to do this depending on your company’s web sophistication and we can tailor our approach to any of them.

One of the six key takeaways from the Stelzner study is that company’s are considering outsourcing their new media marketing:

Twenty-eight percent of businesses plan to outsource part of their social media marketing efforts in 2011. That number has doubled since last year’s report when 14 percent said they outsourced such tasks as design and development, content creation and analytics to others outside the company.

Cote, LLC can accomplish this either way and often without you spending a new dime on marketing. We can train your people to accomplish this effectively or we can do it for you. Again, new media marketing is not a one-size-fits-all game as many of the larger marketing service providers would have you believe.

Read the points from the study and give us a call. We’ll see what fits for you.

“Cote, LLC…New Media Marketing for the rest of us”