According to a recent survey by Prospero Technologies, nearly 9 in 10 marketers already using social media said they plan to “increase” or “increase significantly” their spending.

Marketers were asked.

Prospero’s 2007 Social Media Survey found 30 percent of online marketers who use social media plan to “spend significantly more on social-media applications in 2008″, while an additional 58 percent also plan to “increase” spending, though not “significantly.”

Some 59 percent of respondents reported that social media performance in 2007 met or exceeded their marketing objectives. Survey participants included major brands from a variety of industries, including Media, Education, Financial Services and Health.

Responses to questions about how web marketers measure ROI reveal that direct sales revenue is not a top measure for determining social media success:

“The majority of respondents see engagement with their brand as the most important measure of social media success, while more concrete ROI measures such as sales and new business leads carry less weight,” said Rusty Williams, co founder and vice-president of Prospero Technologies.

Regarding the types of social media applications in use:

Regarding objectives for using widgets, the top uses respondents cited:

* Helping audiences promote conversations/interest on social media sites such as MySpace and Facebook (32 percent)
* Improving the speed and efficiency for implementing technologies on their site (29 percent) as the top uses.

Regarding current social-media challenges:

* Integrating community-generated content with the rest of the website and understanding best practices for new/evolving technologies were rated the top challenges.
* Closely behind was keeping up with new social media technology advances.

Before we get too excited, the study was conducted online, gathering responses from over 50 businesses currently using social media applications. This point is critical as personal experiences suggest that the majority of brands with no exposure in the social media space prefer to observe the goings on from the stands, waiting until such time that direct sales revenue is the defacto measurement for determining social media success!

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2 Responses to “Social Media Survey: Spending to Increase Next Year”

1. Glen Allsopp (4 comments.) Says:
   October 24th, 2007 at 10:09 am

   Some very interesting stats there, thanks for sharing them

   I certainly hope the spending does go up

2. Tom Tsinas (21 comments.) Says:
   October 26th, 2007 at 7:03 pm

   Don’t we all Glen!!

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