While social media marketing is still considered more of an emerging area, various surveys reveal that marketers are pushing more of their budgets into this channel.
Measurability and the risk of placing an ad next to undesirable content remain obstacles that dampen the appeal of the medium, but according to a report recently released by the Aberdeen Group, 21 percent of companies surveyed said they planned to increase their social media marketing spending in 2009 by more than 25 percent.
Another 16 percent of respondents said they would increase their social media marketing spending by 11 percent to 25 percent, while 26 percent said they would increase spending in this area by 1 percent to 10 percent.
Only 3 percent said they would decrease social media marketing spending in 2009 by 1 percent to 10 percent, and no one said they would decrease spending in this area by 11 percent or more.
A separate survey conducted by Datran Media found that 43.9 percent of respondents planned to increase their social media budgets in 2009, while 24.3 percent said they would keep them stagnant and 5.7 percent planned to reduce these budgets. Another 26.5 percent were unsure.
The Datran Media survey also found that 22.9 percent of respondents said that social media was an advertising channel that had performed strongly for their companies.
eMarketer expects worldwide online social network advertising spending to increase 17.3 percent to $2.35 billion in 2009 from $2.00 billion in 2008. Annual growth going forward into 2013 is expected to remain around 10 percent.
The Aberdeen survey found that 39 percent of respondents planned to use social media marketing to establish a method for engaging consumers in online conversation, while 26 percent are aiming to instill an organizational focus on social media.
Twenty-four percent will try to establish a method for defining social media benchmarks and goals, while 21 percent will create a team dedicated to social media return-on-investment.
Clearly, the number of dollars flowing towards online social media has lagged far behind the growth of, say, a site like Facebook. But the tides seem to be turning, if just a bit. After all, year-over-year growth of 149 percent (according to February data released by Hitwise) is hard to ignore.
The economic strain on marketer’s overall budgets may delay an even swifter shift, but once the recession has passed look for marketers to increase their tolerance and desire for more experimental campaigns.
Sources:
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1006989
http://www.datranmediasurvey2009.com/
http://hitwise.com/press-center/hitwiseHS2004/social-networking-feb-2009.php
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