Social media: comparing results with expectations

eMarketer.com recently published findings from a study of US small businesses comparing the results of social media tactics with expectations. The chart below speaks for itself; it’s encouraging to see that, in the most part, the accomplished results are broadly on a par with expectations. No surprise that the biggest shortfall lies in “identify and attract new customers”; in my experience most businesses greatly under-estimate the time it takes to build  a robust network and start converting this into new sales leads.

eMarketers June 2010 Social media tactics performance

How does your experience of social media marketing tactics compare?