Social Media Spending to Hit $1.3 Billion This Year

Why rent an audience when you can buy your own? That's the new philosophy of marketers who are spending money this year to build out a social networking presence through "earned" media rather than paid media.

Some advertisers, like Pepsi, are pouring marketing dollars into homegrown projects rather than flashy bets like the SuperBowl. But even so, online video ad dollars will grow significantly this year according to the most recent figures from eMarketer--they'll be buoyed by pre-roll ads. Keep an eye on new video ad formats that will emerge this year thanks in part to fresh evidence of the effectiveness of tailored and interactive online video spots. For more details, watch this week's New Media Minute.

Daisy Whitney

Editor's Note:  Daisy's New Media Minute is produced and sponsored separately from Beet.TV.  We are pleased to publish her segment regularly here.  AP

UPDATE: The Nielsen Company announced today the overall online video usage and top online brands ranked by video streams for December 2009.  Unique viewers, total streams, streams per viewer, and time per viewer were up, led by a 13% growth in time spent viewing per viewer in December.

For more December online video data, visit Nielsen Wire.