That’s a 55% increase over the $1.99 billion U.S. advertisers reportedly spent on social networking sites in 2010, and nearly 11% of what they are expected to spend on all online advertising in the U.S. in 2011, eMarketer says.
Worldwide spending on social networks is expected to rise 71.6% to $5.97 billion, approximately 8.7% of the total amount advertisers are predicted to spend online in 2011.
And which social network is poised to take the biggest slice of those ad dollars? You guessed it: Facebook.
eMarketer expects that advertisers will spend $4 billion on the social networking giant this year, $2.19 billion of which will come from U.S. advertisers. That’s more than double the amount ($1.86 billion) Facebook pulled in in 2010.
“2010 was the year that Facebook firmly established itself as a major force not only in social network advertising but all of online advertising,” said Debra Aho Williamson, principal analyst at eMarketer. “In 2011, its global presence is something multinational advertisers can’t ignore.”
It could even surpass these estimates if it’s able to increase its global user base and pull in more revenue per user, she said.
Images courtesy of Flickr, Dell, Constant Contact
