Marketers to invest in social media marketing in 2010
A new worldwide survey from Alterian has found that 66% of marketing professionals will be investing in social media marketing (SMM) in the next 12 months.
The survey of 1,068 marketers also revealed that, of those investing in SMM, 40% said they would be moving more than a fifth of their traditional direct marketing budget to funding their SMM activities.
Alterian said that this supports other statistics from the survey which found that the majority of respondents (67%) feel social media is either ‘increasingly important’ or ‘critical to success’.
David Eldridge, Alterian CEO, said: “2010 marks the start of the digital decade for marketing. Untargeted and irrelevant marketing techniques are now redundant and the results of this survey show many in the industry recognise this. The one thing to remember, however, is that investment in social media marketing is futile without adequate measurement.”
With more than a third (36%) of respondents saying they are investing in social media monitoring and analysis tools, Eldridge added: “Without the adequate investment in listening and measurement tools it renders any anticipated investment in social media ineffectual. The key to an effective social media strategy is listening.”
Survey respondents came from Europe (36%), North America (62%) and Asia Pacific and other (2%).
In December, a report from The Nielsen Company found that advertisers have more than doubled the amount of money they spend on social networking websites since 2008.
Around $108 million was spent by advertisers on social sites like Facebook and MySpace in August 2009, up 119% year on year.