80% of Global Marketing Leaders Plan to Increase Social Media Spend-New Study

Eighty percent of marketing leaders globally say they plan to move their funds from other channels to social media, in recognition of how it has emerged as crucial to the customer journey and to driving business value, according to a new survey. 

Sprout Social’s Impact of Social Media Marketing is based on the views of over 1,200 marketing professionals worldwide. They credit social media with delivering business outcomes such as customer acquisition (60%), customer loyalty (58%), and revenue (56%) but they feel less confident about how to measure return on investment.

Why social media literacy matters

Social media has gone through an evolution in the last decade. That shift has seen social platforms become less of a place to connect with friends and more of a place for brands to engage and convert consumers. Gen Z, moreover, now prefers using social media to search for products and recommendations ahead of traditional search engines.

According to Sprout Social, the top platforms for business impact are Facebook (70%), YouTube (68%), and TikTok (64%). As more brands try to harness the power of social platforms, those who are better able to prove its effectiveness using data will likely emerge as leaders in this space.

More on this topic in what we know about social media effectiveness.

Takeaways 

• 87% of marketing leaders plan to increase their paid social spend, and over 80% will increase their spend in influencer marketing and organic social.
• 75% of leaders plan to expand the headcount of their social teams in the next year, with social media search engine optimization specialists the top job they are recruiting for.
• Less than half (44%) of leaders rate their social team at the “expert” level for measuring ROI, using revenue, efficiency metrics and sophisticated reporting.
• Most social teams measure success by engagement (68%) and conversion rates (65%).
• 69% of CMOs think more posts will increase impact, but only 50% of managers agree, with data from Sprout Social backing managers: while publishing volume dropped over the past year, engagement was up 20%.

Key quote

“As social media delivers stronger ROI and attracts greater investment, enhancing data literacy will be critical so brands can harness social insights for transformative impact across their organization” – Scott Morris, CMO, Sprout Social.

Credit: Sprout Social, WARC