Marketing Forecast from Ad-ology

The Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth has tracked the social media strategies of fast-growing enterprises – those on the Inc. 500 – since 2007. For the first time, researchers detected a significant drop in the use of corporate blogs in the past year. These companies aren’t cutting back on their social communications with customers but they are changing how they reach out.

In just a few short years, consumers have made Facebook a go-to location and marketers have followed with their online ad budgets. Between 2009 and 2011, analysts believe the firm’s ad revenues grew from an annual $740 million to an estimated $3.8 billion. Despite Facebook’s popularity, marketers can turn to many other online destinations to spend their ad budgets. As a result, Facebook is using a number of techniques to keep marketers and users connected to their online universe.

Leading edge marketers may like to believe that consumers are learning about new brands through social media. But new research shows that’s not always the case. Further, consumers only occasionally mention brands in their social media posts.

Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) may have been late to the social media party, but many of these enterprises now see the promise in this marketing channel. For years, many SMBs have been using traditional media outlets to connect with local consumers. But now that so many consumers are using social media, SMB owners see that they can communicate directly with potential clients in their local market.

Marketers who have been fretting about the expense and difficulty of managing social media campaigns may have a new reason to expand their efforts in this channel. The latest research shows that social media has some staying power. And the statistics might just be significant enough to convince more enterprises to participate in this form of marketing.

Small businesses are clearly on board with online marketing overall, but interest in mobile is up sharply, according to Ad-ology Research. More than 20 percent of small business decision-makers say they plan to commit more resources to mobile marketing in 2012, up from the 12 percent who said the same last year. Compared to previousRead the Rest…