The Year of Social?

Call 2014 the year of “social acceptance.” More marketers are committing budget to paid social media advertising. And social media companies are providing advertisers better targeting than ever, and more ways to see the return on investment, according to a new eMarketer report, “Social Media Advertising: Seven Trends for 2014.”

Facebook’s efforts in 2013 to simplify and prove the effectiveness of its ad products paved the way for future growth in spending. And as a mobile platform, Facebook has delivered scale and efficiency and will continue to pull mobile dollars in 2014.

Twitter, which went public this month, will continue its push for brand dollars by partnering with TV networks. Its planned acquisition of mobile ad technology company MoPub will help improve Twitter’s self-serve ad platform.

eMarketer estimates that next year, 88% of US marketers will use social media for marketing purposes, up from 87% in 2013. Though not all of these companies will buy paid advertising, they represent a base from which the social media companies can grow their ad business.

In a sign of just how far social media has come, respondents to RBC Capital Markets’ study with Advertising Age in September 2013 ranked Facebook second to Google in terms of advertising ROI, ahead of Twitter, LinkedIn, Yahoo! and AOL. Even more telling was just how close Facebook came to Google, separated by just one-tenth of a point on the scale.

Social media advertising took huge strides forward in 2013, and there are multiple signs that the momentum will continue next year.

Courtesy of eMarketer