Social Media is here to Stay - the Marketing and Advertising Opportunities just keep Growing

Internet marketing consultants are recognising the potential of social media marketing as the channel continues gain popularity.

Jon Maddison, the UK country director of Epsilon, said: "Social media is clearly here to stay, but the precise sites that people visit are probably going to change in time."

He predicted a new range of marketing channels are bound to spring up as companies begin benefiting from the advantages of using this form of advertising.

His comments follow in the wake of recent findings by Epsilon which indicate that 37 per cent of companies avoid using social networks owing to the lack of proper understanding of the medium.

Email marketing messages which incorporate social sharing options have 30 per cent higher click-through rates (CTRs) than others that lack this option, according to recent research carried out by GetResponse.

Messages which included a Twitter sharing option were found to have 40 per cent higher CTRs than those without, found the Email Marketing and Social Media Integration Report.

Simon Grabowski, founder of GetResponse pointed out that stopping at integrating social media networks to marketing campaigns would not be enough as the main focus should be on sharing information.