Social Media eCommerce Advertising and Marketing: Things to Know

Social media ecommerce advertising and marketing campaigns are hot, hot, HOT!

There is a very good reason for this: They work!

According to a recent study by comScore, the top twenty percent of social network members visit social media sites an average of 2.4 times each day for an average visit duration of approximately half an hour. This is twice as long as the same people spend reading e-mail or engaging in instant messaging!

What does that tell you?

It tells you that if your ads are on social media sites, users will be spending a lot more time with them!

This is a good thing. More time with your ads translates to more brand recognition for your business, more recognition with a much higher click through rate when a user sees your paid search ads, and more sales for your ecommerce business.

The comScore US report “The State of Social Networks as a Media Platform” showed that in the month of July 2009 more than 20% of online display advertising impressions took place on social media sites.

That was more than double the number of display ads seen on email and entertainment websites. 

Not surprisingly, the two social media giants---Facebook and MySpace---accounted for the bulk of the ads that were viewed. 

A Nielsen study has reported that internet users have increased the time they spend on social media networks by a significant margin in August 2009. Social media websites accounted for 17% of total time spent on the World Wide Web this past August, a jump from just 6% in 2008.. 

Nielsen also reported that merchant display ad spending on social networking sites has doubled year over year.

Money spent advertising on the top social networking and blogging sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Blogger has more than doubled, rising from $49 million in August 2008 to approximately $108 million in August 2009. 

Bear in mind that this is just for one month. 

Based on calculations by eMarketer, if the growth that the Nielsen study tracked in August of 2008 and August of 2009 keeps going at the same rate for the entire year, then by the end of December 2009, advertising money spent on social media networks and blogging sites will reach approximately $1.2 billion in 2009!

This should be all the proof a netrepreneur needs to believe that money spend advertising on social media sites will be money well spent!