Social media reaches tipping point?
Companies have more than doubled their adspend on sites like Facebook and MySpace in the past year, according to the latest figures.
Data from The Nielsen Company reveals that US companies set aside £67.34 million for online marketing purposes on the most popular social media sites in August 2009. This compares to an adspend of £30.56 million just 12 months earlier – a 119 per cent year-on-year rise.
Moreover, it has emerged that firms in the entertainment and travel sectors are fuelling this growth. Entertainment companies spent £6.25 million on social media marketing last month while travel companies spent £1.37 million, which translates into annual rises of 812 per cent and 364 per cent respectively.
Advertisers learn to trust social media marketing
Jon Gibs, vice president of media and agency insights at Nielsen's online division, said the figures demonstrated rising confidence in the effectiveness of
MySpace and
Facebook marketing. "In the past, advertisers had significant concerns with social media advertising," he explained. "The considerable increases we've seen in adspending over the past year suggest that many of these concerns have subsided or been addressed."
Last month, it was reported that more than
four-fifths of the biggest US advertisers had a presence on Facebook. The social media portal claimed it was used by 83 of the 100 companies with the largest total US adspend, including high-profile brands such as General Motors, Johnson & Johnson and Nike. Users who add the corporations to their list of friends are often rewarded with exclusive content such as special promotions, virtual gifts and advergames.
