70% of Irish Marketers plan to increase marketing budget given to social media in 2016

By @TheMarkDalton

New research released today by Edelman and the Marketing Institute of Ireland has shown that 70% of Irish marketers plan to increase the percentage of their marketing budget given to social media in 2016. 

51% of those surveyed highlighted Facebook as the single most important social platform for their business (up from 36% in 2015) with Linkedin and Twitter neck and neck on 22% and 21% respectively. The research was unveiled ahead of DMX Dublin, Ireland’s largest digital marketing conference which takes place at the Aviva Stadium on 9^th March.

Twitter remains the platform most likely to see an increase in activity, whilst Snapchat and Instagram see the biggest percentage change from 2015 results. Given Facebook’s already dominant position, it continues to perform exceptionally well with 60% saying they’ll increase their activity in 2016.

The Irish marketing community was also very supportive of the new advertising regulations around the use of social media influencers. 75% of research participants appearing to endorse a recent announcement by the Advertising Standards Authority’s intent to crackdown on influencers who do not declare paid posts.

37% of marketers surveyed said that they had used a digital influencer in their brand activity, with 24% of this group paying them for their involvement.  Use of social influencers in marketing campaigns is set to increase in 2016, with 52% of survey participants indicating that they would increase their use of prominent bloggers, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat and Twitter users.

54% of respondents believe that online influencers can play a credible or very credible role but 25% are worried about the ethics of using online influencers to promote a brand or product.

11% of respondents had experienced a social media crisis in the last year, with 20% feeling unprepared to deal with it.  Despite the increasing amount of online issues, 82% of Irish marketers surveyed had not undertaken any social media crisis simulation in the last year and 40% don’t have any social media guidelines for employees.

The importance of video was again underlined by the fact that 97% of Irish marketing professionals intend to increase its use in their marketing plans in 2016. Real time marketing also fairs well with 60% currently undertaking some form of real-time social media activities.

When it comes to use of paid ad support of social media, 70% of those surveyed expect to increase their spend in 2016 with Facebook (91% up from 70% in 2015) leading the way in terms of paid social regularly used, followed by Twitter (44% up from 42% in 2015), LinkedIn (28% down from 34% in 2015) and Instagram (16%).

Edelman have provided an infographic on some of the key data which you can see below.

About Edelman

Edelman is a leading global communications marketing firm that partners with many of the world’s largest and emerging businesses and organisations, helping them evolve, promote and protect their brands and reputations.