Here are some interesting social media stats from a recent Econsultancy report (based on an online survey of more than 400 US companies and agencies, which took place in December 2009 and January 2010):

• The Value of Social Media Report found that four out of five companies (81%) expect social media budgets to increase over the next year, while 18% expect spending to stay the same.
• Almost two-thirds of companies surveyed (61%) say their organizations are “poor” (34%) or “very poor” (27%) at measuring return on investment from social media.
• Facebook is the Web property mostly commonly used in social media, with 85% of companies using this site as part of their marketing strategy. This is followed by Twitter (77%), LinkedIn (58%) and YouTube (49%).
• Over two-thirds of company respondents (67%) say that the amount of money spent on social media has increased since last year, while 30% say it has stayed the same.
• Increased traffic to Web site is the business goal that marketers are most likely to be trying to influence through social media marketing. Three quarters (74%) of companies say they use social media to increase traffic.
• Direct traffic to Web site is by far the metric most commonly used to measure the impact of off-site social media, measured by just under two-thirds of company respondents (63%).
• More brand recognition (64%) is the second most important business objective in terms of impact of social media. A similar proportion of respondents (62%) cite better brand reputation.
• Despite the widespread recognition that social media marketing impacts brand reputation and brand visibility, only a quarter of all respondents (25%) surveyed use online brand mentions and brand awareness as a metric for measuring off-site social media success. Just 15% use brand perception as a metric.
• Just over half of companies (56%) say that they try to achieve increased sales through social media activity. But only a quarter of companies (24%) use sales as a metric for measuring social media success.

They’re selling the entire report for a few hundred bucks – although I’m not quite sure what more you could learn from it. Bottom line: spend money where money won’t be wasted, and further enable your community to share their enthusiasm (and, vicariously, your message).