Social Media is in the mix of Online Advertising and Internet Marketing in general (like it or not) - time to get onboard before your competition leave you in the slow lane

Internet marketing consultants and others in the industry appear to be increasingly concerned with the benefits of using social media in their advertising campaigns.

This is according to a new survey conducted by Alterian, which revealed that 66 per cent of those asked will be investing further in social media marketing in the coming year.

Chief executive of the company David Eldridge noted that 2010 will be the advent of the "digital decade for marketing", stating that "untargeted and irrelevant" techniques are becoming outmoded, a fact recognised by many in the sector.

It was also seen that, of those planning to invest in social media, 40 per cent intend to direct over a fifth of their traditional marketing spend towards this, a trend correlating with previous figures from the company suggesting that the majority believe social media to be either very important or critical to their businesses.

"Engaging with customers is becoming paramount," Mr Eldridge continued, adding that this is "the yardstick by which we measure those brands that survive and those that don't".

This comes after a previous Alterian study, published in December 2009, indicated that web analytics and social media monitoring are to become essential in the measurement of return on investment driven by relationship-based internet campaigns in the next year.

Source: Alterian