By Sergio Balegno, Senior Analyst

Change in Social Marketing Budget from 2009 to 2010, by Industry Sector


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This chart shows that social marketing will benefit from significant budget increases in the year ahead, regardless of what industry your organization is in. What this chart doesn’t show is where these increases will come from.

As a relatively new and rapidly emerging tactic, social media is generally funded by either increasing the overall budget or, more often than not in the current economic climate, by shifting funds from other marketing line items to social media. Social marketing budgets are growing at the expense of other tactics and a deeper dive into our 2010 Social Media Marketing Benchmark Report will show you which ones and to what extent.

The human factor will account for nearly 60% of social marketing expenditures next year including staff salaries for blogging, content development, social monitoring, etc. Another 20% of the budget will go outside the organization to agencies, consultancies and other social marketing service providers.

For additional research data and insights about social marketing, download and read the free Executive Summary from MarketingSherpa’s 2010 Social Media Marketing Benchmark Report.