- eMarketer Staff

This year will end with major shifts in social network advertising spending.

Facebook, with 350 million users overall, is the premier destination for marketers in the U.S. and many worldwide markets. It will surpass its former rival, MySpace, in ad revenue in 2010, per eMarketer.

In total, marketers will spend $2.2 billion to advertise on social networks worldwide in 2009, with $1.2 billion in spending in the U.S. In 2010, Facebook will account for nearly one-quarter of all social network ad spending worldwide, up from 20 percent in 2009.

Marketers will continue to make social networks a priority for 2010, but a significant portion of their spending will go toward building and maintaining a SocNet presence. Paid advertising on such venues will remain somewhat of an afterthought.


Concepts such as earned media (the additional unpaid exposure a brand gets when consumers share about the brand online), local social advertising, social search and social ad networks will be key themes next year.