Alterian company's 7th annual survey in which 1,068 marketing professionals around the world were surveyed, found that two-thirds are planning a social media marketing investment within the next 12 months.

Over 67% of those surveyed identified Social Media as either "critical to success" or "increasingly important" and about  40% said they would spend about 1/5th of their traditional direct marketing budget for social media activities.

This makes a lot of sense right?

Social media provides direct, instant, global access to hundreds of thousands of people. So it makes me wonder when I hear people tell me that they are still relying on the yellow pages for their leads or when people give me "we're a local company" as their reason for not engaging in social networks.

Come on folks. Lets get real here.. Social media marketing is not just important to the viability and long-term success of your company, it is becoming IMPERATIVE.

Stay in front of your customers and prospects and remain in business or else……(you fill in the blanks).