Recently I was presented with an interesting question that, when I think about it, deserves a blog post. The question is: Will social media marketing budgets increase in 2012 and, if so, by how much?

First off, statistics show that social media is showing no signs of letting up — activity on social channels is increasing at an insane rate. For example, from 2010 to 2011 the number of registered Facebook users grew a whopping 82%. Additionally, Twitter has seen an increase from 27M Tweets per day in 2010 to 95M in 2011.

Activity is clearly booming, which equates to more work for social media marketers and therefore higher costs. Not only are more competitors using social media for marketing, more customers/clients are using social channels to thank brands, bring customer service issues to light, and stay informed. In essence, monitoring and responding to 50 social engagements per day (e.g. Twitter mentions) is far less work than addressing 200 social engagements.

Second, early adopters have shown social media marketing actually works, and followers are starting to jump on the social media bandwagon. Statistics don’t lie. In 2012, more companies will be utilizing social media for marketing purposes because, well, they have no choice.

When crafting your marketing budget for 2012, be sure to put social media marketing and SEO at the forefront. You’ll thank me later.

Aaron Schoenberger
The Brainchild Group