Econsultancy has combined forces with BigMouthMedia in order to create a massive report on the level of participation that businesses have in social media and social networking to promote their companies. The full report is a massive 82 page summary and while it costs £250 for the full report there’s still some decent information to dig out of the free report.

95% of all companies surveyed now include social media marketing of some type in their online marketing mix, although the degree to which companies partake does differ wildly.

Profile creation and management remains the most popular technique, rather than actual networking or even media sharing. 56% of all respondents say that this is the main part of their social media efforts online. However, it does seem that executives and professionals are beginning to take things a little more seriously as this figure is actually down from 65% last year.

45% of companies have no guidelines when they do partake in social networking so it’s essentially an unplanned free-for-all. 40% say that they do or have done very little with their social networking program while around one third of those businesses surveyed say that they do an average amount.

When it comes to deliverables, direct traffic is still viewed as being the most important measurable metric. 72% say that this is one of the most important metrics that they use.

Social networking can generate a lot of leads and website traffic but, generally speaking, it’s fair to work on the “the more you put in, the more you get out” rule of thumb and those giving social networks little to no effort will receive little to no reward for their efforts.