While almost 90 percent of U.S. companies will use social media for marketing purposes in 2012, both brands and creatives are still struggling to measure success in any accountable way beyond “soft” engagement metrics such as followers, Likes, comments and shares, reports eMarketer.

A recent study from Econsultancy and Adobe discovered that almost six out of ten marketing agencies (60 percent) and almost as many global brands (57 percent) reported that engagement was the deepest level at which they could track return on investment (ROI) from their social campaigns.

Just 16 percent of agencies and 12 percent of companies stated that revenue impact was directly measurable from their social strategy. One in five companies said almost no ROI beyond basic website traffic and clicks was trackable.

Brands were most likely to be using Twitter and Facebook as part of their social media strategy (86 percent each, respectively), ahead of YouTube (59 percent), LinkedIn (54 percent) and Pinterest (37 percent).

(Source: eMarketer. ROI image via Shutterstock.)