B2B Advertising in Social Networks are Increasing

This article in eMarketer details that businesses will spend $40 million this year in advertising on online social networks this year alone, and according to projections the amount spent will increase to $210 million by 2012. The chart bellows highlights the expected growth over the next couple of years.

The need for B2B marketing has increased online because of the growing popularity of professional social networking sites like LinkedIn. Ms. Williamson mentions:

"Even Facebook has become a de facto B2B social network, simply because so many business executives have joined it in the past year."

Visa has already taken advantage of this growing business demographic on Facebook by launching the Visa Business Network for small business. It will be interesting to see the barrage of applications being built around the Facebook platform within the next couple of months.

Thiago

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6 comments:

Alex Chambers said...: In eMarketers note, their projection includes display and Rich Media. What I question here is why a B2B Marketer would place Display/Rich Media dollars on social networks, when the consumer side has shown repeatedly, that display does not work.

Additionally, it would be good to understand the spending against the various platforms (Display/Search/Widgets).; September 16, 2008 at 12:13 PM
Anonymous said...: WOW!!! The chart is a great tool, which highlights the expected growth over the next few years. Social networks is making an IMPACT online for small business.; September 17, 2008 at 9:48 AM
Driven to win for GOD said...: Don't forget about the affiliates too when it comes to making money off of online ads...lol

www.ShawnDrewry.com; September 24, 2008 at 9:33 AM
Unknown said...: These figures still seem small to me. projected to $200M in 2012? That's not really that big of a number for B2B.

Does anyone have a link to a complete breakdown of advertising on social networks, not just b2b?

Thanks,

Boyan Josic
IncubationGroup.com; October 5, 2008 at 3:36 PM
Thiago said...: Thanks Boyan. I agree $200M is still not a big figure for B2B advertising.

Take a look at this post on the SearchMarketStandard blog, it details worldwide online social networking advertising, not just B2B.

http://www.searchmarketingstandard.com/blog/2007/07/social-network-advertising-part-1.html; October 6, 2008 at 9:27 AM
Anonymous said...: Considering that there are now so many social networks catering to such a wide range of niches, my biggest problem is finding ones relevant to me and related to my specific interests or product niches. Google seems to be inefficient and returns alot of irrelevant results. A good resource that I use to find them is this search engine to help find you a social networking site.; October 12, 2008 at 1:40 AM

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