Dollars Keep Flowing to Social Media Marketing



At a recent event I was asked whether I thought social media was a fad. The finding of a new survey from the Association of National Advertisers, BtoB Magazine and marketing services firm Mktg should put that thought to rest — more than half the marketers polled (55 percent) said they’ve shifted funds from traditional media budgets to execute social media campaigns. 48 percent said they took money from marketing communications budgets. Twenty-six percent said they created an incremental budget.

What are they doing with the  money?

  • 66 percent of marketers have used social media in 2009, compared to 20 percent in 2007
  • 50 percent have employed viral videos so far this year, up from only 25 percent in 2007

The top sites used are:

  • Facebook (74 percent)
  • YouTube (65 percent)
  • Twitter (63 percent)
  • LinkedIn (60 percent)

In 2009, the most effective newer media platforms were:

  • Search engine marketing (SEM) (65 percent)
  • Own Web site (59 percent)
  • Search engine optimization (SEO) (55 percent)
  • E-mail marketing (45 percent)

The study also showed the different ways BtoC and BtoB marketers use social media:

  • Mobile is three times more likely to be used by b-to-c marketers
  • LinkedIn rates first with b-to-b marketers
  • Facebook is top among b-to-c marketers
  • Twitter is used more by b-to-b marketers (70 percent) than b-to-c marketers (46 percent)

What tools will be hot in the next year?

For those not yet using these platforms 34 percent said blogs, 28 percent think mobile is the way to go and 23 percent will start using social media.

What’s your hot choice for the next year?

Image credit:  WebSuccessDiva

Bookmark and Share

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or
subscribing to the feed to have future articles delivered to your feed reader.

Posted by Sally Falkow On 5 August 2009 2 Commented



2 Responses to “Dollars Keep Flowing to Social Media Marketing”

  1. dominiq says:
    August 5, 2009 at 7:57 am

    Thanks for the info.

    I find it strange that people view social media by paltforms, as if this was just “additional chanels” for online marketing.

    What I believe is really at stake is for brands to engage with communities/tribes and influencers cross infrastructures.

    So my bet would go on standards like RSS and aggregation.

    Best

  2. Sally Falkow says:
    August 7, 2009 at 6:18 am

    Hi Dominiq,

    Engagement is of course the goal. I guess that when planning budgets they look at where they feel that will be most beneficial to them. When we do a social media strategy we do look at where the conversations and influencers are for a particular brand. The overall goal is engagement across infrastructures, but we have found that sometimes one network or social site is more effective. I fully agree with the choice of RSS :) of course. And it’s the one I think is least understood and used.

    Sal

Leave a Reply