Further evidence that advertising on social networks (a.k.a. Facebook) is a booming business. BIA/Kelsey reports today that social media advertising revenues will grow from $2.1 billion in 2010 to $8.3 billion in 2015. BIA/Kelsey defines social media advertising as money spent on advertising formats across social networks.
The research company says that the currently, the predominant ad format on social networks is display, spending on which the firm expects will increase from $2.1 billion in 2010 to $7.7 billion in 2015. While revenues from non-display ad formats (i.e. Twitter’s “promoted products”) are currently minimal, BIA/Kelsey expects that in the coming years non-display formats will continue to grow as an ad genre on social networks, and expects the social non-display segment to grow from zero in 2010 to $600 million in 2015.
Of course, Facebook currently dominates most of the revenues generated from social media advertising. eMarketer reported in January that Facebook’s ad revenues came in $1.86 billion in 2010, while MySpace ad spend plummets.
BIA/Kelsey says that its version of social media advertising does not include virtual goods and rewards, social gaming, social commerce or social marketing, all of which are booming areas in advertising as well.
Facebook is the world’s largest social network, with over 1.1 billion monthly active users. Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg in February 2004, initially as an exclusive network for Harvard students. It was a huge hit: in 2 weeks, half of the schools in the Boston area began demanding a Facebook network. Zuckerberg immediately recruited his friends Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes, and Eduardo Saverin to help build Facebook, and within four months, Facebook added 30 more college networks. The original...
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