With more than 750 million registered users, Facebook has undoubtedly become a fruitful launching pad for many businesses' social media marketing campaigns. However, as a recent Mashable report shows, Facebook isn't the only advantageous social media marketing tool.
According to the report, which was sponsored by the Awareness Social Marketing Hub, 92 percent of all social networking users are on Facebook. Recognizing that this is too big of a market to ignore, 70 percent of small businesses currently use the social network.
However, the report also pointed to a number of ways other social networks are being used to bolster brands. For example, the study found that 500,000 merchants are currently utilizing the location-centric network foursquare, and more than 381 million foursquare check-ins occurred in 2010. As Brafton reported, foursquare also recently launched a new list feature that can increase exposure for businesses, adding to the geosocial site's value.
Additionally, Twitter has proven to be an effective social media marketing tool. Highlighting some of the more notable Twitter marketing campaigns, Mashable pointed to Coca-Cola's Promoted Trend, which garnered 86.5 million impressions in June 2010 alone, as well as 20 million impressions captured by Network Solutions' GoGranny SuperBowl campaign.
One social network that is notably absent from the study is newcomer Google+, which was introduced this summer but remains in an invite-only testing phase. As Brafton has reported, Google's social network already has more than 25 million users and will almost certainly have a significant impact in the social media marketing world in the near future.
