Social Media Marketing Spending Booms Up

Social media marketing has risen to become one of today’s most used marketing techniques. More and more people now acknowledge the potential of launching your own social media marketing campaign. More and more people now invest more and more on social media.


When social media marketing was first introduced only a few were interested as many doubted its potential benefits. Skeptics heavily flamed the concept, even more when the financial crisis engulfed the world. But social media has endured, and has grown into epic proportions. It has now even take up a significant portion of a business’ budget.


Social media marketing is even considered by many as the best option for underfunded companies or marketing campaigns. The economic meltdown forced people to resorting to cheaper methods, which made them come to using social networking, as it is one of the cheapest alternatives. And to their surprise, it worked wonders. And now that it is accepted by the general public, it is sure to grow even more.


When compared, the February 2010 budget spending on social media marketing is 60% higher that that of August 2009 (from 3.5% to 5.6%). Likewise, the planning for the subsequent one to five years shows a analogous altitude of thought as well: in August 2009, social media spending was thought to be 6.1% for the next year and 13.7% for the next five years; and now, it's more like 9.9% in the next year and 17.7% in the next five years.

.
Top Five Social Media Marketing Resources

1. Webinars / Podcasts – webinars and podcasts are comsidered to be great resources for professional development, industry research and learning about potentially-relevant products and services, saving people the time and expense of attending in-person training.
2. Ratings & Reviews – provide useful input into the business buying process, particularly those ratings or reviews provided by other small businesses using the product or service.
3. Company / Brand Pages on Social Networking Sites – social network participation is now mainstream for U.S. adults, with 46% using sites such as Facebook and 25% participating weekly. Small business leaders are increasingly turning to these sites to find the latest information about important vendors, products and services.
4. Company Blogs – small business leaders praise company blogs – at least, those that are “well written, current and with good thought leadership articles” – as great sources of information about business-relevant products, services and the underlying character of a company.
5. Social Media Search – while some of the business-relevant information on social media sites can be found through general search engines, a great deal cannot. Realizing this, over half of small business leaders using social media search for business-relevant information directly on sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Business.com Answers, SlideShare and many more.