A recent survey of nearly 1,900 businesses illustrates the effectiveness of 7 different social marketing tactics and how easily they can be measured.

Most people think that social networking is limited to social network sites like Facebook and MySpace. Surprisingly, this tactic ranked lowest on the list for effectiveness! Instead, the most effective tactics were participation in user reviews, blogs, and discussion groups (in that order).

One thing is for sure, the popularity of social tools have grown exponentially over the past year. Sooner or later, every business will recognize the long-term value of participation. Here is a breakdown of the results: