The other day I was asked if social media was just a ‘phase.’ This was not the first time I had heard the question and it is one that deserves some discussion. As companies continue to reassess their current marketing and branding campaigns, the question of how much to allocate toward social media campaigns is becoming a bigger issue. Not only is cost being taken into account when companies review social media, but also how it will affect their branding as well as customer relationships.

What Is The Trend?

While more and more companies begin engaging their online communities through social media, the question is how much will they increase by in the coming year. According to Forrester, they predicts that interactive marketing will have a 16% compound annual growth rate through 2014. Additionally, according to research reported by Ravit Lichtenberg, “48% of Marketing and PR moving money out of advertising into social media with only 18% moving money out of PR.” This is significant because this will be the first time that more money is being taken out of advertising budgets than in PR.

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