Fun Fact #10

73% of marketers are investing the majority of their social budget on Facebook — Hanapin Marketing, The State of Paid Social 2017

It’s the State of Paid Social as We Know it

Earlier this month, PPC experts and conference architects, Hanapin Marketing, released a detailed report on the State of Paid Social 2017. The report gathers data from brands, agencies, and consultants and analyzes how marketers in the field are working paid social into their strategies.

So what do these findings mean for the future of the industry? In a rather eye-opening stat, Hanapin found that 72% of marketers are spending less than 15% of their budget on social advertising, but 63% say they do have plans to increase their social spend by 2018. This decidedly significant intention to allocate more budget to social ads may signal a shift from the good-ol’-days of free organic social traffic to the more realistic opportunity of paid social to reach those users of yesteryear.

Facebook Still Reigns O’er the Land

As I’m sure you all recall “fondly” (as a shudder creeps down your spine), Facebook recently disrupted how brands used social media in a sweeping move that gave more relevance to posts from friends and family in a user’s newsfeed. The somewhat evil-genius move crushed organic reach for brands – simultaneously winning the hearts of Facebook users and pushing marketers into the open arms of Facebook’s advertising unit.

As marketers realized the extensive targeting available through Facebook ads, and the value paid social offered as a whole, it was a no-brainer to start investing in social media advertising.

What social platforms are advertisers currently investing in graph — Source

While Facebook must be drooling at these numbers, Hanapin found that video ads still appear to be a mystery to about 35% of marketers, despite Facebook favoring these ads in newsfeed. A majority also expressed that they are not investing in Facebook’s newer ad formats like Slideshow, Canvas and Collection ads. So while Facebook remains king, there are still many opportunities for marketers to jump on to continue extracting value from Facebook advertising – and that’s not even counting all the other social platforms that can bring added value to your strategy.

So What’s Holding You Back?

According to the study, marketers are finding that a lack of resources can hinder them from hopping aboard the social advertising train. Understanding that quality trumps quantity, the most common obstacle they referenced was manpower (30%) and the closely related content creation (28%).

A more streamlined approach that focuses on optimization to drive performance may be the key here. Acquisio offers a social solution that improves ad performance with extremely user-friendly rapid creation A/B testing tools, advanced campaign analytics, and performance optimization suggestions to help you maximize your ROI.