Hot on the heels of of similar UK predictions from Econsultancy, comes this from Brian Morrissey in Adweek:

According to researcher eMarketer, [US] online ad spending will climb 8.9 percent next year, from $23.6 billion to $25.7 billion.

Old school methods like display ads and microsites will come under pressure. Social media looks set to remain on the top of advertisers’ agendas, as they look to apply the lessons of their early missteps in the area while adding real measurement to what have been experimental forays to date. As the Internet becomes more social, there will likewise be an acceleration of a move from purely technical implementations to using the Web’s emerging social infrastructure to connect on a more human level.

Combined with the phenomenal growth in people’s usage of social media and the impact this has on their purchase decisions, this makes us even more confident that the help and advice that we’re able to offer brands means that we’re in the right place at the right time…

Econsultancy have published a good overview of the economic outlook in 2009 for the digital marketing industry, with one of the data sources quoted being Wednesday’s eMarketer report predicting 7.2% growth in UK online ad spend.

Just like the Group M report earlier this month, although there’s bad news for those in the industry who have yet to wake up to the changes that social media is bringing to people’s behaviour, there’s good news for those of us that have:

Time and time again, when we meet with companies, we are asked about social media marketing strategies. Whilst this covers social networks, it is likely we will see a rise in businesses actively trying to engage with users through other social means online.

Tying in with the forecast that social media will continue to grow, is that despite a recessive economy, online marketers will look to alternative ways of measuring success – rather than just a standard ROI model.

This has been mentioned before, but to recap: measurements of success also include customer retention and satisfaction (all the more important in a recession), the rate of customer acquisition and the net promoter score.

As reported by today’s Guardian, amidst the grim news from Group M that the UK’s total advertising spend is set to fall by nearly 6% in 2009, there are some figures that stand out.

Digital spending is likely to grow by 4% and public relations by 2%. Not massive growth, but a lot better than the 9% decrease predicted for traditional media spending.

This is some consolation for those of us that believe that social media is causing a fundamental change in the way that companies communicate with their customers and prospects, as it seems that the people who hold the budgets think the same, and despite the economic climate are juggling their budgets to reflect it.