Are you struggling to work out if your social media marketing programme is worth your investment in time? Then you are not alone - some 47% of marketers who responded to the recent Econsultancy survey said that they were not able to measure the ROI of their social media marketing programme and that the 'jury is out'.

In my experience you can determine the outcomes of your social media marketing - but to do so you have to get clear about your goals at the beginning of your campaign - but that is what many organisations fail to do.

Of the 800 companies and agencies who took part in the research in August-September 2010 (72% being based in the UK), 40% reported they have “experimented with social media but have not done much”.

Some highlights of the report are:

- Around a quarter of company respondents (26%) said their most senior managers were “very interested indeed” in social media, compared to 19% who said there was “very little interest”

- Direct traffic (72%) is still regarded as the most important metric for assessing social media activity - almost three-quarters of respondents say this is one of the three most important metrics they use

- 45% of responding companies don’t have any policies or guidelines for the use of social media (in my experience this is far higher and many companies have started engaging in social media without a policy being in place).

You can purchase the Econsultancy Social Media and Online PR Report 2010 here: http://econsultancy.com/uk/reports/social-media-and-online-pr-report