Social media is an essential marketing tool that most companies are embracing in 2010: 70% of senior marketing executives surveyed are planning new social media initiatives during the year, according to a new survey from Marketing Executives Networking Group (MENG) and Anderson Analytics.

Below, other findings from the Third Annual Survey of Top Marketing Trends among senior marketing executives.

Among those using social media, large companies (2,000+ employees) are more likely than smaller companies (fewer than 2,000 employees) to have a presence on Twitter (47% vs. 31%), Facebook (63% vs. 39%), YouTube (35% vs. 16%), and MySpace (13% vs. 3%); smaller companies, however, are more likely to have a presence on LinkedIn (47% vs. 36%).

Regarding personal use of social media, LinkedIn and Facebook are the sites most popular among all executives. However, marketing executives at smaller companies (15%) are significantly more likely to have a personal blog than those at larger companies (6%).

Meanwhile, some marketers are beginning to tire of social media-related buzzwords, including social media itself (29.1%), Twitter (14.8%), and social networking (7.5%)—the top 3 buzzwords marketing executives are most tired of this year.

2010: Business Prospects and Marketing Budgets

Nearly two-thirds (66%) of marketers are more optimistic about business opportunities in 2010, while 28% view 2010 as being similar to last year, and just 6% are less optimistic about the business outlook this year. 

Compared with 2009 levels, more marketing executives are planning increases in their budgets: 24% plan to increase their annual 2010 marketing budgets, compared with 11%  who said so last year. Meanwhile, 27% plan to reduce their annual budgets, compared with 51% last year.

However, larger companies are less optimistic: Only 21% of large companies plan to increase their marketing budgets in 2010, while over one-third (35%) plan to reduce their marketing spend this year.

Overall, marketers' 2010 budgets still favor offline marketing (55%) over online (45%), with smaller companies investing a larger percentage of their budgets in online (48%) compared with larger companies (30%).

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Top 15 Marketing Concepts, Buzzwords

Marketing ROI is the most important marketing concept this year, cited by 58% of marketing executives, followed both by customer retention and by brand loyalty (53% each ) and positioning/differentiation (52%).