The boom in online social media is expected to lead to an increase of more than 30 per cent in online-advertising spending this year. The increasing number of people engaged in the social networks and more time being spent online by Internet users are two main factors being used to convince marketers to spend more on online advertising, according to marketing agencies.
The managing director of online advertising agency TopSpace, Kasamart Neerapatama, forecast a 30-per-cent increase in spending on online advertising in 2010. He named three factors responsible for this: the increasing number of social-media users; the increasing total number of Internet users; and the Fifa World Cup.
TopSpace, which oversees online media for top websites including Sanook.com, Hi5.com, Mcot.net and Yahoo.com, claims a 25- to 30-per-cent share of the total online-advertising market.
However, online advertising currently claims only 1 or 2 per cent of total advertising spending.
via Online ad spending grows sharply.