Curves Like This You Don't See Every Day

Excerpted from eMarketer Digital Intelligence 1/8/2010

Marketing, Not Ads, Fuels Social Spending Growth

Focus on word-of-mouth and earned media

Going social is no longer an experiment for marketers; it is a reality.

Marketers spent $800 million in 2009 on social network, word-of-mouth and conversational marketing, up more than 23% over the previous year. Further growth of 35% is expected for 2010 to more than $1 billion.

“In 2010 and beyond, a substantial portion of marketers’ expenses will go toward creating and maintaining a fan page, managing promotions or public relations outreach within a social network, and measuring the impact of a social network presence on brand health and sales,” wrote eMarketer senior analyst Debra Aho Williamson in the report, “Social Network Ad Spending: 2010 Outlook.” “Paid advertising will serve to drive traffic and engagement with the larger social network presence.”

My Take

Good old fashioned WOM and social media - two great phenomenons that go great together.

Marketers are planning to spend more and more on getting word-of-mouth to happen. Let's flip the problem around. How about creating a Web infrastructure that facilitates the WOM that's already occurring naturally and normally?

Seems like the simplest solution.