Fueled by new technologies and widespread corporate adoption, social advertising is finally hitting the mainstream. According to a recent report issued by Strategy Analytics, ad spend on social networks grew a robust 41% globally in 2014, totaling over $15.3 billion, and now accounts for 11% of global digital ad spend. A similar report by eMarketer was even more sanguine, projecting that social advertising spend will reach $23.68 billion in 2015. Regardless of which figure you go with, the trend line is clear: brands are shifting their ad dollars into social media.
The Ad Man Cometh
While seen by many as the inevitable advancement of ad tech into fertile new territory, the trend of brands investing in social advertising is a growing cause for concern among many practitioners of and believers in “organic” or “traditional” social media marketing. Writing in Ad Age last month, Mike Proulx wrote a subtle, albeit widely misconstrued, article lamenting the current state of social media marketing:
