According to the study, respondents said that they are currently spending 5.6 percent of marketing budgets on social. That number will rise to nearly 10 percent in the next 12 months and to nearly 18 percent in the next five years. These numbers reflect similar data that recently came out from the Society of Digital Agencies, and points to the growing importance of social media as part of the overall media mix.

It would be interesting to see how these numbers break down even further, for example, how much is going towards marketing  third party sites or networks vis-à-vis expanding the use of social tools on their own sites. Most of the companies we talk to are testing a variety of approaches. How are your budgets being allocated? Contact us and let us know.