According to the Forrester Research report , Social media campaigns are growing into an established part of the interactive ad mix as more companies embrace it — 64 percent of marketers already build social media applications and 22 percent more will by the end of 2009.
As more brands embrace social media, companies are becoming more comfortable using it, even as the sector is still developing tools, metrics and benchmark standards.
So what’s causing the seismic shift in ad dollars from traditional media to interactive? The recession, consumer expectations of interactive and personalized brand relationships, declining print readership, maturation of the interactive ad industry as well as increases in social media use and mobile phones are all factors contributing to the shift.