Measuring "traditional" media can be time consuming in itself, without even getting into tracking thousands of blogs, forums, and other social media outlets for your clients.

A new report released today by analyst firm Aberdeen Group and Web 2.0 Social Marketing agency Converseon highlights some of the business benefits of measuring and monitoring social media.

Click here to obtain a free copy of the report.

On a related note, PR and social media blogger John Cass notes that 10% of the Fortune 500 are now blogging.

For you lazy ones, key findings from the report are posted after the jump.

It found that Best-in-Class organizations are over 680% more likely than Laggards to improve their ability to predict customer behavior through the use of social media monitoring and analysis tools.

Best-in-Class companies are nurturing technology implementation with key organizational processes and capabilities, such as a formalized process for monitoring consumer-generated content (65%), dedicated personnel devoted to social media monitoring (52%), and an "early warning system" for detecting potential threats to the brand (42%).

As a result of strong organizational support, Best-in-Class companies are 5 times more likely than Laggards to be "extremely satisfied" with the number of actionable insights derived from social media monitoring and analysis.