While Facebook is the predominate social site, there are dozens of others as well, ranging from microblogging service Twitter to professional network LinkedIn. Just as there are multiple social networks, there are also many ways to use these radically different websites, according to a new survey from NM Incite.

The research polled consumers on the various ways they use social networks. Regardless of whether advertisers take advantage of display options on these sites or if they use them for customer service in their multi channel marketing efforts, it's crucial to understand how companies' target audiences are tapping these sites to create an experience best suited for them.

As MarketingProfs notes, 89 percent of adults using social networks do so with the intent of communicating and staying in touch with friends and family. While brands have the ability to engage with individuals utilizing social networks for that specific purpose, there may be other opportunities.

For example, nearly two-thirds of consumers turn to social channels to read feedback about products and services or to find specific product information. Sixty-six percent read consumer reviews, 54 percent share positive feedback about brands and services, while 50 percent tell negative stories about companies. Meanwhile, 60 percent use social sites to find information on products and 58 percent leverage them to get promotional discounts.

Additionally, approximately one-half of social network users tap sites for professional purposes. Nearly half (48 percent) leverage social sites to bolster their personal professional networks, while 28 percent use these sites to find new jobs.

This is further exemplified by how people decide to connect with friends and acquaintances through social networks.

"The most common reason Facebook users add 'friends' on Facebook is because they know them in real life: 82 percent say knowing someone offline is reason to add them on the social network; 60 percent add friends because they have mutual friends and 11 percent add friends because they share a business relationship," the report notes.

With that in mind, it's crucial advertisers establish set goals before launching a social media campaign. Social media is a multi-faceted communication tool, so brands can leverage it in a variety of ways. Identifying the objective of an initiative enables them to determine the optimal strategy for achieving their goal.

Social media is best characterized by consistent experimentation. Unlike email, search or display advertising – which have all been around for a decade or longer – social media is still a relatively new platform. Many businesses are still trying to wrap their heads around the medium and figure out the best ways to use it.

However, that may soon change. According to a recent report by the 2012 Pivot Conference and Brian Solis, nearly 50 percent of both internal and third-party advertising agencies believe 2012 will be the year social media goes mainstream.

"Social professionals are split on key issues in the market, have conflicting perspectives on the expectations of social consumers and differ in their current use of social. At the same time, they agree that social can deliver bottom line benefits to their organizations and is on its way to becoming mainstream," the report notes.

As social media becomes a pillar for successful multi channel marketing campaigns, Facebook will remain a crucial component. However, advertisers were quick to note that effective initiatives require more than just Facebook. In particular, respondents expressed interest in seeing how consumers respond to Google+. While the social network is still relatively young, it boasts a feature set that could make it a favorite moving forward.

What others argue is keeping social media from going mainstream

While 49.2 percent of respondents said 2012 would be the year for social media, just as many suggested it wouldn't be. Those arguing against the nascent advertising platform cited both budget issues and the general difficulty of leveraging it as chief concerns.

Nearly half of advertisers – 47.2 percent – said attributing the appropriate budget to social media was the top problem. It has traditionally been difficult to determine return on investment of social media campaigns, which makes marketers hesitant to spend big dollars on it.

Unclear outcomes (44.9 percent), absence of a clear strategy (41 percent), lack of understanding (39.3 percent), executive skepticism (39.3 percent), lack of metrics (37.1 percent) and no cross functional support (24.7 percent) were all noted as other reasons social media may not catch on big.

"At the end of 2011, social marketing stands at a profound crossroads," said Brian Solis, host of the Pivot Conference and principal at the Altimeter Group. "Some organizations are finally embracing the importance of social networks and, as a result, increasing investments in creative engagement, marketing and service programs. Others see the future value, but lag behind in execution."

Social networks offer more

options

With advertisers contemplating getting more involved with social media, social networks are certainly making the choice more attractive.

For example, Facebook is allegedly working on a mobile advertising format that will enable businesses to reach customers on the go. Previously, advertisers were limited to the display options for users accessing the site on the web. However, the mobile displays will be a completely new ad type that will be inserted into newsfeeds.

Meanwhile, Twitter is also offering advertisers more options. The social network has just begun testing a self-serve platform, similar to the one on Facebook, that gives businesses the ability to purchase ad space on Twitter without having to go through the social network's sales team.

Regardless of whether social media goes "mainstream" or not, businesses should work to develop a sound social media plan. Sites such as Facebook have a tremendous user base that enables brands to tap new audiences.

The advent of mobile marketing has brought with it a number of technological advances and benefits for companies and organizations looking to offer dynamic content to their consumers.

One of the most popular of these innovations is the quick response code, which allows smartphone users to scan barcode-like stickers to access additional information about a company, its products or services, to receive unique benefits, such as discounts and special promotions.

Yet, launching a well-executed and engaging QR code campaign isn't as easy as it may sound. Many businesses fail to connect with their target audiences or provide value-added services to loyal customers, which can ultimately lead to falling revenue and decrease shopper satisfaction. Fortunately, in a recent article for Direct Marketing News, Lisa Marriott offers companies a few tips to help make sure their QR code initiatives are a success.

Before doing anything else, Marriott explains, business owners, entrepreneurs and marketers need to sit down and outline the goals for the campaign. Who are they looking to reach? What do they want the codes to do for consumers and, ultimately, the business? Barcodes, she writes, cannot be picked for purely aesthetic reasons.

Furthermore, QR codes share some characteristics with social media – they're meant to interact with customers and promote a greater feeling of inclusiveness. With this in mind, businesses should aim to use QR codes wherever appropriate, spurring as much conversation as possible.

Businesses should remember that customers should be rewarded for continuing to follow and interact with their brand, so use QR codes to deliver incentives, Marriot writes.

"Scanning a barcode should result in a brand experience that is exclusive, dynamic and interactive," she explains. "Research has shown that initiatives that incorporate giveaways, discounts, free tickets or priority access will have higher response rates. Incentives will increase customer retention and new customer acquisition, while providing the brand with valuable information about their target audience and what inspires them."

However, businesses should deploy QR codes in isolation – they should focus on creating connections. Advertise the campaign on social networks, websites and via print ads. Using cross-channel marketing, companies may be able to reach new audiences who would have never known about their products or services otherwise.

Social media has proven that it is more than just a passing fad. Whether your business is using Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn or Twitter, the technology has become an indispensable part of any company's or organization's multichannel marketing strategy.

As a technology, social media continues to see updates, changes and revolutions, and with the end of the year upon us, it may be wise for entrepreneurs and business owners to review the major trends in 2011 to see what 2012 may have in store for the sector.

One of the biggest social media sites to hit the web in 2011 was Google+, the search engine giant's answer to Facebook. Launched in June, the network didn't open up to marketers until late October, a move that Mashable says may have hindered growth.

While the future for Google+ is still unclear, some marketing professionals are citing its possibilities for SEO and its Circles function as aspects that make it superior to Facebook for businesses.

"Unlike Facebook, it makes it easy to talk to people according to their interests, instead of sending everything to everyone," Robert Ray, president of ad agency Gyro, told Mashable. "This level of personalization helps change marketing from unwanted noise into more humanly relevant communication."

Facebook has been introducing new elements as well. This month, Facebook Gestures and Timeline will go into effect, allowing customers to do more than just "Like" a company and putting the pressure on marketers to post continually interesting content, the website explains.

While Twitter has slowly been gaining ground and followers since it launched in 2006, this year it proved its mettle with companies. It faced a slow start, attempting to sell ad placements for $25,000 to $30,000 in April. However, the company revamped its business strategy and is now being referenced by companies urging consumers to tweet about them using a specific hashtag.

In early December, Twitter gave its website and mobile apps a major makeover, a separate article by the source reports. One important revamp targeted its Discover section. Now, when searching for trending topics or hashtags, Discover will identify stories based on a particular user's interests and history.

"In contrast to some of its earlier moves this year, Twitter appears to have handled its platform-wide revamp deftly, and the majority of its users are pleased," Mashable writes. "If it can work out some issues on the mobile side, it may have scored a home run." 

Older or established companies tend to stick to their guns – if something is working for them, they aren't in a rush to change it. This was the case with Continental Van Lines and its multichannel marketing efforts – the brand traditionally made heavy use of print advertising to promote its moving services.

The company is "very Yellow Pages-oriented," director of sales and marketing Brad Fransen told MarketingSherpa. However, given the growing shift in how consumers find moving services, the company decided to try a new approach using pay-per-click search advertising.

While Continental still makes heavy use of traditional marketing approaches – such as print ads and radio spots – Fransen did note the success the company enjoyed after switching to PPC advertising. Continental's paid search effort managed to achieve a 300 percent return on investment and 76 percent click-through rate.

Fransen said the key to success was observing the same metrics he did for traditional marketing efforts – cost-per-booked move and number of estimates provided to prospective customers. He wanted to be able to track where his leads were coming from, the number of calls generated by ads, the number of estimates generated from calls and the moves derived from the ads.

"When I consider doing advertising in any medium, whether it’s digital or not, I look at that same factor," Fransen explained to the news source.

He also noted the importance of reaching specific audiences. Being a major brand comes with the perception that Continental may not offer competitive prices compared to local movers. Fransen wanted to address that concern as the company targeted key markets.

"If a company is affiliated with a major van line, they're perceived as automatically being too expensive for a local move. And yet, as an independently-owned company, we are as competitive price-wise on a local move as any local moving company," he added.

It's crucial to note Fransen's approach to integrating multichannel marketing campaigns. Regardless of which platforms he uses – whether it's print marketing or paid search – he always uses the same success metrics. This makes it easy to determine which platforms are the weak links, which could be improved and which should have more money invested in them. Audience also needs to be considered when creating specific campaigns.

In this day and age of customization and social media, the concept of automating marketing has seemingly become taboo. However, as MarketingProfs recently noted, marketing automation can have a number of tremendous benefits, particularly when it comes to generating return-on-investments.

First and foremost, it helps marketers target specifically high-value, high-potential leads. Marketing isn't necessarily about promoting products and services to everyone under the sun – it's about reaching relevant clients. Marketing automation solutions help separate low-quality leads – people who are only somewhat interested in products – from high-quality ones – those who are most likely to make a purchase.

"Lead scoring, personalization and automatic segmentation based on behavior can be a huge ROI winner," explains the news source. "Interestingly, the more mature the revenue marketer is in his or her overall competency, the more focused she is on No. 1: targeting high-value, high-potential leads."

Marketing automation can also improve late-game conversions. Most businesses think that automation is only effective in the early stages of the game, but a tightly said solution can still help in the end. Even if it only generates a small improvement, that's still low-hanging fruit that can lead to some easy ROI.

One of the biggest mistakes marketers make is letting leads slip through the crack – perhaps they contacted them but never heard back and didn't follow up or they just missed them while going through their lists. Marketing automation is crucial to ensuring no lead goes untouched.

"With marketing automation the upside is big. Take the time to map out the life of a lead, from cold lead to close, and look at those key areas where leads are leaking or pouring out of the process," MarketingProfs adds. "Once you understand where and why leads are leaking, you can plug those leaks with automatic nurturing via your marketing automation system."

While automated systems can make the lives of marketers a lot easier (and more profitable), it's important to have a strong human element as well. Sometimes there are patterns that programmed variables just won't pick up, and for that reason, advertisers need to ensure they have a set of eyes on it. A good combination of both automated solutions and savvy advertisers are vital to successful multi channel marketing efforts. 

At the end of last year, Twitter announced a feature many advertisers were eagerly anticipating – a self-serve advertising platform that lets businesses create campaigns on the fly, similar to how Facebook works.

The current advertising platform is run by Twitter's in-house sales team. Advertisers need to get in touch with the social network and work out which Promoted Products they want to use and how they plan to use them. Obviously, this isn't the most streamlined way of handling things – having to work through Twitter results in delays that can cost marketers precious relevancy – although it did ensure a certain level of quality.

Fortunately, the new self-serve model will alleviate much of these difficulties. Advertisers will be able to run their own Promoted Tweets or Promoted Trends without having to go through Twitter. This marks the first time since Promoted Products launched in April 2010 that advertisers will finally be able to launch their own campaigns on the social network.

"Earlier [in November], Twitter began testing self-service advertising with a handful of existing advertisers. These advertisers can now set up and run their own Promoted Products campaigns and pay via a credit card, without working with our in-house staff," a Twitter spokesperson told ClickZ.

Additionally, the implementation of the self-serve advertising platform may drive down costs. Promoted Products have typically been expensive, with Promoted Tweets and Trends running brands upward of $100,000 per day. However, the self-serve platform, combined with recent geolocation features, may enable a broader pool of marketers to take advantage of the tools to reach Twitter's 200 million users.

However, at first, Twitter will be limiting the number of brands that can make use of the new self-serve feature.

"As with all of our advertising efforts, we're starting small, testing carefully and making improvements on [it] as we learn what works. We will slowly roll this capability out to more advertisers in the coming weeks and months," the spokesperson added.

Twitter is set to generate approximately $140 million in advertising revenue this year, according to a recent eMarketer report. However, over the next few years, the research group anticipates that revenues will increase significantly, driven by new advertising features such as the self-serve platform. By 2013, eMarketer forecasts Twitter will pull in $399 in ad revenue. 

Increasingly, retailers are realizing the benefits of leveraging the growing population of smartphone users to disseminate their direct marketing campaigns.

In fact, a new report from Juniper Research predicts that the mobile retail marketing sector will be worth $15 billion worldwide by 2012, representing a 50 percent increase over 2011.

A few factors will contribute to this rapid rise in value, including increased budgets for mobile ad spend as well as a growing acceptance among retailers of mobile coupons. A separate survey from the research firm noted that as customers grow more cost-conscious and tech-savvy, mobile coupons will be in greater demand, with their total redemption value exceeding $43 billion globally by 2016.

"With people much more cost-conscious today, the appeal of a bargain offer specially tailored to you and delivered to your own mobile phone exactly when and where you needed it (or even if you didn’t know you needed it) is very high," David Snow, an analyst, writes for the company.

Retailers are responding to consumer desires. Additionally, the report notes that while mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers have made it easier to reach shoppers, they also allow consumers to run on-the-spot price comparisons with stores' competitors.

Yet retailers shouldn't assume that the same technology will be attractive and useful for all consumers. For example, the research affirms that a mobile app may not be the most appropriate channel through which to connect with a target market. And perhaps even more importantly, not all consumers may want to be contacted.

Mobile retailing should promote trust and loyalty among a retail establishment's consumer base, making it doubly paramount that prior to launching any direct marketing campaign, the company asks for subscriber permission.

"Mobile retailing is undergoing rapid change," says Snow, one of the authors of the report. "We are starting to see an 'arms race,' as the power of the mobile channel equips both the shopper and the retailer with capabilities they never had before."

"Each side has to keep up with the other and gain an advantage in order to clinch the purchase transaction in their favor," Snow added.