A new report from Roost, the first of what they say will be quarterly releases, reaffirms what we’ve been telling you… businesses are seeing results from social media.

Over 71% of small businesses surveyed said that social media is their most effective means of marketing. (Compare that to a total of 26.4% for print and display advertising combined.)

Now, that’s not news if you read this blog. We’ve highlighted the numbers on social media repeatedly, both businesses using and customers on. So what’s new about this report?

A couple of things.

First, Roost asked businesses how important their social media campaign is to their overall marketing efforts. The numbers might surprise you.

41.8% say social media is “extremely important”. Another 45.5% feel it’s at least “somewhat important”. Another 8.5% chimed in as “wishy-washy” (That’s a technical term for those folks who answer a poll as “neither”. Yeesh, pick a side!)

That’s a lot of numbers to throw around, we know. Sorry about that. Here’s the most important one… ready?

Only 4.2% of small businesses surveyed felt that social media is not important to their marketing campaign.

That number likely reflects the folks who are… well… doing it wrong.

But there’s more to the report that we found interesting enough to share. Roost also asked small businesses which problems they’ve faced when utilizing social media marketing. The answers are interesting.

The number one answer (45.1%) is one we’ve gone over before; namely, it’s difficult to reliably measure ROI from social media. (We go into more detail on that challenge here.) But what other problems are businesses struggling with?

If you discount the answers that basically comprise “I/my customers don’t like social media”, as well as “It’s not effective” (translation: “I’m doing it wrong“), you’re left with this:

• 38.5% Don’t know what to post
• 35.2% Took up too much time
• 22.1% Found it confusing

That’s where we come in.

We know how to help you engage your customers – what to post, in other words. We have the time because we don’t have the other parts of your company to run. We understand you can’t let social media take time away from doing the business of your business. Lucky for you, this is our business.

And while we’ll never claim we don’t occasionally become confused…(Heh. More than we’d like to admit, actually.) we do think we’ve got a pretty good handle on the social media thing.

So, let’s review.

The vast majority of small businesses surveyed feel that social media is the most effective weapon in their marketing arsenal, with over 40% calling it “extremely important”. The biggest barrier mentioned (measurable ROI) can really be a matter of perspective, as we’ve shown you before.

And, the other challenges… well, those are the things we’re here to help with.

Give us a call.