Latest Nielsen Company figures estimate that online advertising spending on the top social network and blogging sites has increased 119% to $108 million since August 2008. Such sites’ share of overall online ad spending has more than doubled during the same time period, rising from 7% to 15%.
The largest growth in spending is in the entertainment industry, where advertisers spent an estimated $10 million on social networks. This represents year-over-year growth exceeding 800%.
While entertainment companies increased online spending on all types of Web sites by an average of 40%, other industries sharply curbed spending elsewhere and refocused on social media. For example, hardware and electronics makers dropped overall online spending by 47%, while investing 55% more in social media advertising than last year. Software, business-to-business and travel industries showed similar trends.
All 13 industries ranked by Nielsen increased social media advertising budgets by over 50%. Nielsen attributes this growth to users’ desire to connect and share, thus driving the growth of the social medium, which has nearly tripled in popularity in the last year. Time spent on social network and blogging sites is now up to 17% of total Internet time.