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Despite the impact of recession hitting marketing budgets this year, 53% of businesses are set to increase spending on social media, says a Forrester Research survey.

However, although spending is increasing, the study of 145 marketing professionals found that most had still set aside a budget of less than $100,000 for their social media activities.

Many of the businesses polled were turning to Web 2.0 technology, such as Facebook or Twitter, and blogging to reach existing and potential consumers.

The results of the survey are in stark contrast to the fortunes of traditional forms of marketing, such as print, television and radio, which have recently seen sharp declines in revenue.

“Social media is new so marketers are trying to pull budgets out of other areas. It’s very early days for most marketers,” commented report author Jeremiah Owyang.

Although more companies are realising the value of social media in an online marketing strategy, Forrester warn that many businesses are unrealistic about the investment needed for success; trying to operate campaigns on “peanuts”.

“If you continue to fund social applications only as experiments, you’re unlikely to be able to do enough to make an impact, or to have a secure source of funding for the future,” warned Owyang.

“One way to put these efforts on a firmer footing is to concentrate on objectives and measure progress… rather than just experimenting to see what happens,” he continued.

The Forrester survey included both B2B and B2C companies, all of which had over 250 employees.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 17th, 2009 at 2:51 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.