Marketing campaigns are getting a lot more social this year as the industry plans to ramp up social media ad spending, a new Salesforce survey of 5,000 marketers found earlier this month.

According to the organization’s 47-page “State of Marketing” report, 70 percent of marketers plan to increase their social media advertising dollars, including on content marketing campaigns and mobile ads on various social media outlets like Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter and Instagram.

In addition, the report discovered that more than two-thirds (67 percent) of marketing firms will amplify their spending initiatives on mobile data tracking, and another 66 percent will enhance their ad budgets on branded mobile apps.

What may please many in the industry is the finding that 84 percent of marketers say they will either maintain or increase their spending in 2015. Also, more than one-third (38 percent) of marketers will transition their ad budgets from conventional forms of advertising (television and print) to digital (online videos, websites and social media).

The study showcased just how integral social media and mobile marketing have become to businesses. For instance, 71 percent said mobile marketing is a crucial aspect to their company, while 66 percent reported social media being a core element to their enterprise. The report further highlighted how marketing firms are actively working to produce successful social media and mobile marketing plans.

“It is encouraging to seeing the growing investment in marketing in general and the recognition of social, mobile and analytics for providing better visibility and engagement into what customers really want based on who they are using multiple channels to make their desires and feelings known,” said Jeff Rohrs, Salesforce’s ‎VP of Marketing Insights, in an interview with TechZone360.

Indeed, firs are beginning to realize that it’s the quality of social media marketing as opposed to the quantity. In fact, 2015 may very well be defined as the year in digital marketing where quality takes precedence over quantity, a concept that is important to the ever-important millennial demographic since they want engaging content rather than constant mundane posts.

The trend of marketers spending a greater sum of their ad budgets on social media can be found in Canada, too.

According to one eMarketer report from 2013, marketers north of the border will be spending just under $400 million on social media ad spending this year, or $20.95 per social network user.  This is up from $197.5 million from 2012, and now accounts for around 10 percent of all digital ad spending.

It’s a hefty sum considering that most analysts argue that Canada has been rather slow to adopt many of the practices involved in social media advertising and mobile app integration, despite Canadian consumers being some of the most enthusiastic mobile users in the world today.

What will marketers be investing in exactly? An infographic released earlier this month by CJG Marketing may have the answer to this as some of the social media trends for this year include:

• Audio and video
• Social media commerce
• Payment features
• B2B and social media collaboration
• Social media analytics

However, it may be important to ask the question: is it too little too late for marketers now?

According to recent analysis by the Business Insider Intelligence, messaging apps could be on the brink of overtaking social media outlets in terms of users, which may prompt digital advertisers to quickly adapt to this area of the market.

Venture capitalist Fred Wilson now purports “the social media phase of the Internet ended” this past year.

What this foretells is that Facebook is well-positioned for the near future because it owns two of the most popular messaging apps available today: Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp.

Photo via Pixabay

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