Emarketer have published today the findings from a study by the Aberdeen Group looking into ROI within social media marketing.

The study found that 63% of the companies within the survey (defined as best-in-class) are planning to up their social media marketing budget for 2009.

The research also discovered that 39% of the companies surveyed said it was somewhat difficult to measure social media and 20% said it was very difficult. This highlights an interesting point in that even at a time when digital budgets are being scrutinised companies are still considering increasing  investment in a medium that’s hard to quantify.  I feel this underlines the importance and value that companies now put on social media, plus and most importantly how social media stands alone as platform within the digital media space.

A study by Ad-ology Research has shown that 25% of small businesses have forecast that they will increase their spending on social networks for 2009, a higher percentage than any other marketing format.

A third of small businesses have said that they will keep spending on social networks, whereas only 5% have said that they will drop their spend from ‘08. This predicted growth could be explained due to the ability to target by registration data. With social networks offering truly granular levels of targeting, justification for spend is easier, especially with marketing budgets in 2009 being scrutinised tightly.

It will be interesting to see which formats make up this 25% increase, standard display advertising or integrated solutions? Research has shown that user’s behaviour within a social network is not endemic of that which will react to display advertising. So will we see the share of display budgets increase on social networks due to ease of justification?