Brands to spend 15% of annual marketing budget on social media: EY

With the popularity and expanding reach of social media, around 90 per cent of Indian brands plan to spend up to 15 per cent of their annual marketing budget exclusively on social media, says an Ernst and Young (EY) study.

"Companies and brands have significantly increased their social media spends even as they find it challenging to measure the effectiveness of their social media engagements," said EY's Social Media Marketing India Trends Study.

It further said: "About 90% of organisations reached out to in this study are planning to spend as much as 15% of their annual marketing budget exclusively on social media, up from 78% organisations in 2013."

Commenting on the study, EY Partner and Customer Practice Leader (India), Advisory Services, Dinesh Mishra said: "It is our observation that while brands have invested financially and in processes, there is a need for holistic customer engagement and strong community building strategies through the use of social media."

Mishra said through this study EY reached out to India's top social and digital savvy brands from the third quarter of 2014 to January 2015.

The study analyses how Indian marketers and organisations have been using various social media platforms and how they go about tracking the performance of their social media initiatives, it added.

The study pointed out that brands across industries have realised the significance of social media and its peculiar demands and focused on current and emerging social media platforms, how companies evaluate, strategise and deploy investments in social media, how social-savvy brands measure success and the outlook of social media marketing.