A new report from Marketing Sherpa called the “2010 Social Media Marketing Benchmark Report” shows the importance of social media marketing now from a strategic perspective.

As social media marketing has moved from the trial phase to the strategic phase, the ability to measure success becomes more important.

“Defining specific objectives for a social marketing initiative is only half the battle. The other half is aligning those objectives with corresponding metrics,” according to the report. “This alignment is important because it enables an organization to measure its progress in achieving the objectives and proving ROI.”

With that being said, does it strike anyone as strange that an increase in Website traffic was the No. 1 objective targeted and measured by all marketers which is the easiest metric to implement?