Where Does Social Media Fit into the Marketing Mix?

Social media spending will become a bigger percentage of companies’ overall marketing budgets in the next several years. However, CMOs still have challenges to integrate social media into their overall strategies.

The American Marketing Association and Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business surveyed more than 400 top marketers for the February 2011 CMO Survey. The report indicates that social media spending will increase in the next year from 5.6% of the marketing budget to 9.8%. In the next five years, that percentage will increase to 18.1%.



Service companies plan the biggest increases. The current challenge for companies is to figure out the balance of marketing that works for them. One quarter of CMO  respondents said social media is not effectively integrated at all.



Integrating social media into marketing and overall strategies, while a major challenge, is not only more cost-effective, it also makes marketing more effective overall.

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