If you're in the business of social media and content marketing, you're in the right place.
According to a report by BIA/Kelsey, social media advertising revenues will hit $11 billion within 4 years, up from $4.7 billion in 2012. That's in the U.S. alone.
The report does not take into account the huge investment we will see across in-house and agency activities to supply brands with social advertising and content marketing solutions.
The report notes the tremendous growth in paid revenue is being driven by a surge in native advertising formats, these are ads that are highly relevant for users and are placed within a news stream on platforms like Facebook, Twitter and recently LinkedIn.
The most popular social advertising products will be driven by excellent content marketing, rather than much less engaging traditional display advertising. The native advertising wave we are seeing emerge today is powered by content marketing.
Marketers have to find ways engage consumers - as traditional forms of advertising, including display ads, become untrusted and users spend dozens of hours a month browsing social media feeds. Native advertising delivers compelling content, engagement and encourages positive word-of-mouth buzz.
The forecast is exciting news for social media and content marketers alike and confirms what many of us already knew. With billions of dollars in revenue set to flow fast into content creation and paid products to distribute that branded content, the industry for content marketing, social media management, planning and execution is set to explode.
"Social networks are evolving their ad products and features to improve performance," said Jed Williams, director of consulting and senior analyst, BIA/Kelsey. "Native social formats, including video, and mobile-social advertising will be the principal market growth drivers."
The report also noted, as social ad products become more sophisticated, more advertisers, including small business', will be drawn to social ad products.
"As social networks continually improve the ease of on-boarding, local targeting and campaign management for both brands and SMBs (improve)," Williams noted.
This report came the same week Facebook introduced a major new tool for marketers, introducing a metrical called 'partner categories' that pulls data from user activities across the web, outside of Facebook. The new tool will allow Facebook advertisers to make better decisions about who is targeted by paid messages.
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