IPG Mediabrands' research arm Magna Global says social media spend will skyrocket from 11% of total digital to 26% within five years, but brands will only get the most out of their dollar if they're invited into 'friendship circles'.
Releasing the research, Magna Global said that social media was an increasing part of the path to purchase, being a digital version of a verbal conversation between friends.
“There is no doubt that social media, of all the digital channels, has emerged as the most complicated territory for brands to navigate as social networks are such an intimate private space for people,” IPG Mediabrands' chief investment officer, Victor Corones, said.
“However it is very clear from our research that social media is already a significant path to purchase for people of all ages.
“We must think of this channel as simply a digital form of verbal conversations that have always been the most powerful form of recommendation for a brand, or a detraction to it.”
Corones said people were now thinking of brands “in the same way we consider our own personal standing in society and the friends we keep.”
This essentially means brands will have to engage in conversation with consumers.
“In social you need to join the conversation, not be the conversation. Push communication found in traditional media will be shunned by consumers in this environment,” Corones said.
The New Era of Conversations report, based on a survey of more than 1000 people, says that by 2019 the marketing industry will be spending $US2.3 billion ($A3.01 billion) in social media, to represent 26% of all internet advertising.
The research also details the increasing use of social media by all age groups including the 65-year-old plus bracket, with 51% of those people interviewed saying they have used a social media site in the past four weeks.
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