Businesses are spending more than ever on social media marketing, according to Duke University’s CMO Survey taken in Fall 2014. In the next five years, social media budgets are expected to increase from their current rate of nine percent up to almost a quarter of businesses’ entire marketing budget.

What’s the reason for the big increase? According the latest report from Shareaholic, Facebook accounted for 23.39 percent of social referrals to websites in the second quarter of 2014. This is a 10 percent gain since March 2014 and a massive 150 percent gain from the second quarter of 2013. Facebook is such a valuable referral source because 64 percent of Facebook users visit the site on a daily basis, according to Pew Research. Facebook leads in social referrals because its users are loyal, constantly staying plugged into their News Feeds and find content can’t seem to get shared by friends valuable.

Other social networks are also on the rise. Twitter and LinkedIn generated 1.14 percent and .04 percent of social referrals, respectively. Pinterest and StumbleUpon also showed gains year over year. Almost 20% of adults use Instagram, making over 200 million active users who photo-share an average of 60 million photos a day.

Today, it is important for any business to be on social media to market your products and services. We at Radical Stripe can help. Set your business apart from the sea of others on Google+, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram, Vine, YouTube, Tumblr, Reddit, StumbleUpon, etc. by working with us to develop and execute an in-depth social media marketing strategy. We’ll develop a plan that fits the needs and personality of your company. That’s what we’ve been doing for clients since MySpace was today’s Facebook. Contact us today to see how we can make social media work for you.