As social networking has become ingrained in our lives, social sharing has become an incredibly valuable way for marketers to drive traffic, reach new customers, generate brand equity and ultimately increase sales.

This infographic from Emailvision is based on a recently conducted a survey of nearly 100 marketers to shed some insights on the importance of social media, as well as the motivations and strategies currently being incorporated into their campaigns.

Here are the key takeaways from this infographic:

• 1. The most ”sharable” content within email campaigns were promotions and discounts at 34.7%. Controversial content came in as the least “shareable” at 5.6%.
• 2. The majority of marketers see social media campaigns as a way to build brand awareness or reputation (35.8%). Less popular is the desire to gain new names for the customer database (7.4%) or to gain insight in to consumer preferences (6.2%).
• 3. Unsurprisingly Facebook and Twitter are the most important social sites for brands. Higher community numbers were recorded on Facebook with 35.2% of brands claiming more than 5,000 fans, whilst on Twitter only 27.3% of brands reported more than 5,000 followers.