BY Kathy Crosett
Social media marketing has been praised as the best way for businesses to engage personally. Recently, businesses have been reducing their investment in this format. Regardless of spending levels, your clients have many ways to optimize the outcomes of their social media messaging.
The State of Social Media Investment
For years, it seemed as though nothing could stop the growing investment in social media marketing. Social media investment now stands at 12.1% of the typical business’ marketing budget. This is a drop from the 17% share the format held in Spring 2023, according to the CMO Survey.
Dr. Christine Moorman and her team of analysts report that leaders are often “bullish” in their social media predictions. In reality, businesses frequently fail to spend their projected amounts on this format.
This year, by business type, social media spending claims the following budget percentages.
- B2B Product 7.9%
- B2B Services 10.6%
- B2C Product 18.6%
- B2C Services 12.0%
Improving Social Media Messaging Outcomes
There’s little question that businesses love social media. For many years, having a presence on the channels signaled that a business was in touch with the latest trends.
But the social space is crowded. Marketers find it harder to stand out now. And some industry analysts suspect marketers are more engaged with social media than their target audiences.
Given these conditions, you can help your clients improve their social media investment by recommending they:
- Reduce their expenses
- Review their influencers
- Recalibrate their media mix
Reduce Expenses
Creating great social media content comes with an expense. Marketers that spend too freely on social media may find their return on investment (ROI) decreasing. But there is a way around this problem.
The research of Dr. Christine Moorman and Koen Pauwels links the business investment in artificial intelligence to better social media messaging. More businesses are embracing artificial intelligence – especially large language models.
They are using these tools to create marketing documents more efficiently. But far fewer are using them on the social media front.
If you have expertise in this area. You can help your clients optimize their social media outcomes by employing AI for content creation. At the same time, you can help them reduce their expenses.
The Power of Influencers
Another reason for the declining ROI on social media messaging is the use of expensive influencers.
If your clients are using influencers, it may be time to review their strategy.
Nearly all marketers, 89%, increased their influencer spending in 2024. Around 38% of influencers spend between $100k and $500k a year, according to Linqia’s 2025 State of Influencer Marketing. A large part of this spending goes to paid social media.
Dr. Moorman points out that influencers with large followings may not be the best use of your client’s spending. Bidding for a popular influencer’s endorsement and time can get expensive. Smaller businesses are likely to benefit from employing local well-
Media Mix Planning
When marketers overspend on one media format, they may fail to connect with their target audience. Researchers have analyzed the amount of time consumers allocate to various types of media. These days, podcasts and FAST TV are rising. As consumers engage with these newer formats, they may be spending less time on their social feeds.
Emarketer data indicates only 7.4% of consumer media time goes to social media. Meanwhile, 17.9% of their time is spent with CTV. Share this trend with your clients as they adjust their budgets for the coming year.
Reaching the Target Audience
Around 23% of consumers are considered social media influencer responders according to AudienceSCAN by AdMall. That’s the percentage of U.S. adults who took action after checking out content posted by a social media influencer in the past 30 days.
These consumers also notice other forms of advertising. AudienceSCAN data shows that 61% of these consumers acted after seeing a TV ad in the past month. These actions ranged from searching online (51%) to visiting the advertiser’s website (44.3%).
Your clients should be frequently reviewing their social media messaging investment. You can help them optimize their outcomes by employing changes to their strategy. Doing so will allow them to profitably connect with their target audience.
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.