Social media marketing is a trend that no progressive brand can ignore anymore, despite the natural conservatism of larger companies. The latest CMO survey shows that all marketing spending is going to increase over the next five years as a result of positive economic predictions. Social media marketing will also increase by both small and big business.
According to Forbes , it will be the major trend, along with growth of mobile, digital marketing in general, and analytics spending.
“Digital marketing is expected to grow by 14.7% next year compared to a negative growth rate of 1.1% for traditional advertising… Second, marketing spend on mobile is expected to almost triple from 3.2% to 9% of marketing budgets in the next three years. Third, marketing spend on social media is expected to increase 126% over the next five years, from currently 9.9% of marketing budgets to 22.4%.”
It seems that business just starts to fully realize what is social media marketing is capable of in terms of promotion and market analysis, and its share in overall marketing spend will steadily increase over the years.
“Most social networks are networks of people who know each other in ‘real life’. This means that there’s a very good chance they’re going to be local to each other and if you can get a satisfied customer to share their experience it’s going to be seen by plenty more people in your target area.”
The usage of social media for marketing purposes encompasses both promotion and data analysis, which is only to be expected, considering what an important part of our everyday lives they constitute. Sometimes the amount of information and the way it is collected can get downright creepy. For example, according to an Inquisitr report, Ditto Labs scan and analyze the photos of users to find out more about them and define trends for their customers.
“Marketers such as Ditto Labs are using image scanning software to mine the photos posted on social media sites such as Instagram, Tumblr and Pinterest, and they aren’t just looking at the brands we prefer. They are checking facial expressions and the backgrounds of pictures to help them better understand social media users.”
Social media marketing opens an entire world of possibilities for businesses; the ability to creep out customers being one of them.
