Whether or not you agree with the current hype that Facebook is losing teen attention, or have picked sides on the war between Instagram and Vine – one thing is certain: social media marketing is an ever-growing industry and a money-maker for brands. Recently, Hubspot has cherry-picked 17 of the juiciest statistics around the subject:

1) 27 percent of total U.S. internet time is spent on social networking sites. (Source: Experian)

2) 15 percent of total U.S. mobile internet time is spent on social networking sites. (Source: Experian)

3) Social media produces almost double the marketing leads of trade shows, telemarketing, direct mail, or PPC. (Source: HubSpot) {link no longer active}

4) Social media lead conversion rates are 13 percent higher than the average lead conversion rate. (Source: HubSpot) {link no longer active}

5) 21 percent of marketers say that social media has become more important to their company over the past six months. (Source: HubSpot) {link no longer active}

6) 74 percent of all marketers say Facebook is important to their lead generation strategies. (Source: HubSpot) {link no longer active}

7) Companies that generate more than 1,000 Facebook Likes also receive nearly 1,400 website visits a day. (Source: HubSpot) {link no longer active}

8) 52 percent of all marketers have found a customer via Facebook in 2013. (Source: HubSpot) {link no longer active}

9) On Facebook, brand posts get half of their reach within 30 minutes of being posted. (Source: Socialbakers)

10) 85 percent of fans of brands on Facebook recommend brands to others, compared to 60 percent of average users. (Source: Syncapse)

11) 43 percent of all marketers have found a customer via LinkedIn in 2013. (Source: HubSpot) {link no longer active}

12) 36 percent of all marketers have found a customer via Twitter in 2013. (Source: HubSpot) {link no longer active}

13) 59 percent of Twitter users have visited B2B tech brand sites, compared to 40 percent for the average internet population. (Source: Compete and Twitter)

14) 25 percent of consumers who complain about products on Facebook or Twitter expect a response within 1 hour. (Source: American Express)

15) Women are more likely than men to regularly check out a brand’s social page (48 percent vs. 43 percent). (Source: Ipsos)

16) 23 percent of marketers are investing in blogging and social media this year, a 9 percent increase from 2012. (Source: HubSpot) {link no longer active}

17) Approximately 46 percent of online users count on social media when making a purchase decision. (Source: Nielsen)

Source: HubSpot