Here's a series of infographics from the always informative Flowtown, showing the growth of social media ad spending. Currently half of the US$3.3 billion spent on social media ads worldwide is spent on Facebook. With Facebook now being the 500 million user gorilla, if anything I'm surprised it's not higher.
As a % of total media advertising, it will hit 12% of the total in 2011. No wonder so many media buying and planning agencies are (as I discovered in person on one occasion last week) are making an increasing play to manage clients' social media strategies - PR consultancies watch out.
Another interesting chart from the infographic, people who 'sometimes' (green % below) turn to social media when making purchase decisions. For travel it's 24%, clothes 23%, groceries 15%.
That might sound low in percentage terms but quantify that in absolute numbers. Facebook has 133 million users in the US and 28 million in the UK. If 23% of those occasionally consult their social media friends before buying clothes, that represents 30.59 million customers in the US and 6.44 million in the UK.