Today on Mashable we got another great infographic about social media marketing.
The graph pulled together many YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Location Based Service stats for a compelling look at the growing world of social.

One interesting stat: The price increase of Facebook ads during the first half of 2011 was 70%. How can they justify such a stunning increase? The answer can be found easily elsewhere in the chart, with 750 million Facebook users and 4 billion things being shared on Facebook each day, the service holds a solid position as a social media marketing mainstay. Try and find a brand that doesn't want their product to be amongst those things with a direct line to those 750 million users.

However, many brands are looking to pages and the news feed as the answer to Facebook marketing, not ads. Back in May, Allfacebook.com reported on a study of paid Facebook advertising versus news feed content amongst 320 graduate and undergraduate students. The study "found that college-age students have “positive feelings” about business pages on Facebook but consider banner ads and sponsored posts to be intrusions."

Is your brand using the news feed to connect with customers? Buying facebook ads? Share with us in the comments on why or why not?

Looking to learn more about news feed optimization? Join us for a complimentary Web Seminar: How to Optimize Conversations on Facebook to Increase Your Social ROI on Tuesday, August 23 from 1:00 – 2:00 PM Eastern Time featuring Chad Estes, Vice President, Client Services at Vitrue. Register for the webinar here. I'll be liveblogging the webinar on twitter for @community20 at hashtag #SocialROI.

Michelle LeBlanc is a Social Media Strategist at IIR USA with a specialization in marketing. She may be reached at mleblanc@iirusa.com