Brands Securing Higher Social Media Marketing Budgets

September 19, 2012

Finally, brands are starting to put together the data they need to show how social media marketing affects leads and sales. That means, brand marketers are securing higher budgets for social media marketing initiatives than ever before.

In a new report from Webmarketing123, State of Digital Marketing 2012, 52% of U.S. business-to-consumer (B2C) marketers and 41% of U.S. business-to-business (B2B) marketers indicated that they planned to increase their social media marketing budgets in 2012. In fact, just 2% of B2C respondents to the study survey indicated that they would not increase their social media marketing budgets in 2013, and just 3% of B2B respondents did not plan to increase their social media marketing budgets next year.

Taking a closer look at which social media sites B2C and B2B marketers have been focusing on, you can see that marketers understand the audiences on social media sites vary significantly. 69% of B2C marketers spent money on Facebook in 2012 versus just 40% for B2B marketers. Data from the survey revealed the following percentages of B2C and B2B marketers that invested in specific social media sites during 2012:

Facebook: 69% B2C, 40% B2B
Twitter: 39% B2C, 30% B2B
LinkedIn: 23% B2C, 39% B2B
Google+: 17% B2C, 14% B2B
Pinterest: 14% B2C, 6% B2B

Furthermore, the study reveals that these social media marketing investments are working, which is opening the doors for increased spending in 2013. According to the study results, the following percentages of B2C and B2B marketers have generated leads or sales from social media sites:

Facebook Leads: 67% B2C, 39% B2B
Facebook Sales: 39% B2C, 19% B2B
Twitter Leads: 43% B2C, 30% B2B
Twitter Sales: 19% B2C, 14% B2B
LinkedIn Leads: 21% B2C, 44% B2B
LinkedIn Sales: 9% B2C, 23% B2B
Google+ Leads: 15% B2C, 7% B2B
Google+ Sales: 7% B2C, 3% B2B
Pinterest Leads: 13% B2C, 3% B2B
Pinterest Sales: 6% B2C, 1% B2B

Based on these findings, it’s clear that both B2C and B2B marketers are having a great deal of success in driving business through social media marketing on the leading social media sites, particularly Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. However, the problem with tracking social media results still exists, and 20% of survey respondents still didn’t know how social media affected their leads. Similarly, 40% didn’t know how social media affected their sales.

In other words, there is still much work to be done in creating the tools to effectively track social media marketing return on investment, but the results to this study show that marketers are making strides in this area — enough to increase social media marketing budgets at least, and that’s a good thing.

Image: Judit Klein

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Susan Gunelius

President & CEO at KeySplash Creative, Inc.

Susan Gunelius is the author of multiple marketing, social media, branding, copywriting, and blogging books, and she is President & CEO of KeySplash Creative, Inc., a marketing communications company. She also owns Women on Business, a leading blog for business women. She is a featured columnist for Entrepreneur.com, a featured writer for Forbes.com, and the Guide to Blogging for About.com. Additionally, her marketing-related articles have appeared on websites such as MSNBC.com, FoxBusiness.com, WashingtonPost.com, TheStreet.com, SmartMoney.com, TodayShow.com, BusinessWeek.com, Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo! Small Business, and more. She has nearly 20 years of experience in the marketing field having spent the first decade of her career directing marketing programs for some of the largest companies in the world, including divisions of AT&T and HSBC. Susan also appears at in-person and virtual events where she speaks about marketing, branding, social media, and more (visit www.SusanGunelius.com for more information). You can connect with her on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn.