Adspend on social networks set to rise 77%

by Nikki Sandison, Brand Republic 04-Jun-08, 12:00

LONDON - Adspend on social networking sites, such as Bebo and Facebook, is expected to rise 77% from £65m to £115m this year as the activity continues to grow in popularity in the UK.

In 2012, marketers are projected to spend £285m, a 148% increase over 2008, according to the research by eMarketer.

An estimated 11m or about 30% of UK internet users participated in online social networking last year.

The UK accounts for 68% of social networking adspend in Western Europe.

The social networking ad market still trails the US by one to two years but eMarketer expects that the UK market will enjoy slightly greater gains in social network adspend, percentage wise, than the US.

However, social sites represent a tiny portion of UK online adspend at just 3.4% in 2008.

Social networking adspend has moved at a slower pace than consumer adoption but with the growth of Facebook and the acquisition of Bebo by AOL, eMarketer said that things are picking up.

Debra Aho Williamson, senior analyst specialising in social networking and author of the report, said: "Though social network advertising is forecast to grow aggressively this year, it will only do so if social network operators can develop substantial metrics showing the value and performance of the advertising."

Comments

Alan Munro - 04/06/2008

Ah yes, value and performance metrics, let's not forget about them. It always strikes me as ironic that where it's relatively easy to measure actual results, you have to justify every penny. Yet in other forms of advertising (TV in particular) where evidence of any kind of effectiveness can be hard to come by, the spend often goes ahead regardless. Think it's going to be a challenge for the social network sites to 'develop substantial metrics' that justify their current high valuations.

Gellan Watt - 04/06/2008

Makes absolute sense what with the amount of time people spend using such sites, and the way that they have become totally embedded within youth culture. But does that same youth culture want advertising invading their space in this way.......?

Dominic Hawken - 06/06/2008

It seems bizarre that so many organisations are spending their time and money advertising on social networking sites when they could instead be investing in the production of interactive widgets for MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, LiveJournal et al. Creating these applications with the help of a digital agency will bring about as much brand awareness as paying for an advert, but in a far more subtle way. Instead of annoying the user by placing an advert on their or one of their friend’s profiles, surely it makes far more sense to endorse your brand through an application or game that they’ll actually enjoy taking part in.