Social media marketing budgets are on the rise

With social networks increasingly giving businesses more advertising options, such as Twitter's new Promoted Tweets and Facebook's social ads, many firms are boosting their social mediamarketing budgets as well.

According to research firm eMarketer, nearly 6.7 percent of all marketing expenditures will be spent on social network ads in 2010. Further, this number will continue to grow to 24 percent of budgets in 2011, accounting for more than $2 billion of marketing dollars. With consumers increasingly registering for social network accounts, marketing budgets attributed to social media should rise similarly.

As eMarketer notes, the growth of social gaming will also draw marketers to the platform. Often, brands can pay online game developers to include their products in games. For example, Honda recently began promoting its 2011 CR-Z on "Car Town," which appeals to car enthusiasts.

AdAge recently reported that companies will focus most of their social media marketing budgets on Facebook. The source estimates the site pulls in nearly $1.2 billion globally from ad spend. The self-serve ads, introduced in 2007, are the network's most popular asset, accounting for 50 percent of Facebook's ad revenue.