Everyone knows that social media - Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, FriendFeed, etc. - is a hot topic. And many businesses have jumped onto the social marketing bandwagon, hoping to use it as an effective new way to build their brands - and ultimately build sales.

But the question has remained: Is social media worth the effort for business? It takes time to keep up with and time, in business, is money. So, a lot of marketers are asking about social media's ROI.

Now, we have an answer.

New research from social media platform Wetpaint and digital consulting group Altimeter Group revealed that companies with the highest levels of social media activity increased revenues by 18% in the last year, on average. Companies who were least active saw the bad economy pull down sales by 6%.

Companies with the highest level of interaction across 10 social media channels, including blogs, Facebook, Twitter and wikis, were dubbed "mavens." These include:

• Starbucks
• Dell Computers
• eBay
• Google
• Microsoft

All these companies, except Starbucks, saw increases in business. Starbucks dropped slightly. So, while use of social media as a marketing tool is not a sure thing in building sales, it seems to help.

One of the more interesting aspects of the report is that your company can rate its own social media efforts by going to the website http://www.engagementdb.com and taking a short survey.

So, are you using social media more today or less? We'd love to hear your results and opinions in our comments section.

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