Most, if not all, digital brands invest in non-paid social media marketing efforts today, but a new report from Nielsen-owned Vizu indicates that many online marketers are planning on spending more on paid social media ads.
The Vizu/Nielsen report indicates that 64 percent of online marketers say their budgets for paid social advertising will increase this year, while 34 percent said their budgets will remain the same. Just 2 percent will decrease their budget.
There were some other rather interesting insights from the study, including that the majority of respondents (advertisers and agencies) had been using paid social media advertising for less than three years. That alone isn't terribly surprising, but what is interesting is that 20 percent said they'd only started in the past year. While social media advertising receives quite a bit of discussion in new media and digital marketing circles, a whopping 70 percent of respondents dedicated just 10 percent or less of their 2012 online ad budget to paid social media.
Is there a future in paid social media advertising?