Social media marketing spend key for customer growth and loyalty

A report from eMarketer assesses recent surveys on average social media marketing spend amongst US marketers and how it changed over time.

Surveys from the DMA and Colloquy  for the years 2008-2010 on branding, customer loyalty and customer acquisition objectives indicated dramatic growth in all areas. However, although average social media marketing spend on acquisition objectives had more than doubled during the period, budgets had failed to grow as significantly as the others.

The report also acknowledged that customer acquisition through social media is an important goal for SMEs, but their budgets are comparatively small. They are overshadowed by larger companies which regard social media as useful for building customer loyalty and allocate increased marketing spend in that area.