A report from AdAge found that 45 percent of marketers named building brand awareness as their top goal with Facebook marketing.

A report from AdAge found that businesses using Facebook for social media marketing have a number of goals in mind aside from driving conversions. While leads and sales are always top of mind, more than 45 percent of respondents said they’re most concerned with developing strong awareness for their companies on the web.

According to the study, more businesses named awareness as a goal but cited other objectives as higher priorities for their social content. More than 17 percent say their use of Facebook was aimed at driving traffic to their websites, while 12.1 percent are most interested in amassing a high number of Likes on the platform. As more users Like content, it increases the reach of a business on the network.

Other top priorities for businesses on Facebook include staying in touch and engaging customers (11.9 percent) and driving social commerce (2 percent). More than 8 percent named lead generation as their top priority, which can be tricky with social marketing. Even with new features from Google Analytics that help marketers assess the paths a customer takes to conversion, deciding which channel is most attributable for a conversion is always a challenge. However, as social builds general awareness of a brand on the network, companies will likely see more conversions and leads.

Despite AdAge’s data that named brand awareness as top goal of social marketing, businesses must also be aware that their prospects are using the platform to find information and get answers. Citing data from Social Bakers, Brafton recently reported that businesses in most industries are missing more than half of the possible engagement opportunities on the site.

Joe Meloni is Brafton's former Executive News and Content Writer. He studied journalism at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and has written for a number of print and web-based publications.