Marketing (Online) Matters
In case there’s still anyone out there who believes social media/social networking is:
- a fad
- for kids
- for B2C, not B2B
instead of a pervasive shift in how all people communicate with each other, now comes yet another eMarketer report, Social Network Ad Spending: 2010 Outlook , that should put those beliefs out to pasture.
One of the most important findings concerns marketing, not advertising:
According to eMarketer:
“… paid advertising in social networks—banners, text ads and search advertising, as well as the more targeted advertising being deployed by Facebook and MySpace—is only a fraction of the spending … The researcher estimated marketers spent $800 million in 2009 on social network, word-of-mouth and conversational marketing, up more than 23% over the previous year. Further growth of 35% is expected for 2010 to more than $1 billion.”
Long story short: Marketers are spending truckloads of money to create demand online in social networks, because that’s where their prospects (consumers and business people of all ages and walks of life ) are.
Demand creation using social media and social networks is no fad, and it is not exclusive to any particular demographic.
Things are looking up. 
