Brands spent 65% more YoY in 2016 on social media advertising
Brands spent 65% more YoY in 2016 for advertising on social media outlets such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest, says US media technology firm 4C. The company found Instagram had the largest social media spend, after it studied the $150m spent across 900 brands using its Social Ads offering. Advertisers spent 138% more on paid-for Instagram posts in 2016, helped by the introduction of its "Stories” feature that allows short photo or video posting. LinkedIn came in second, with a 130% YoY increase in spending, and Pinterest following in third place up 109% YoY.
Brands spent 65 per cent more on advertising on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn Instagram and Pinterest in 2016 than in 2015 according to a new report by US media tech company 4C.

You can download a copy of the report here and it should be noted that the study is written from the context of the US market.

The report titled State Of Social Advertising and published on the media site CNBC found that Instagram was the biggest winner when it came to paid social media spend.

For the study, 4C looked at $US150 million in media spend across 900 brands that manage its social media activity on the five platforms through the company’s Social Ads product.

It revealed that advertisers spent a whopping 138 per cent more on paid-for posts on Instagram. In fact, the Facebook-owned photo sharing saw 100 million extra members join in the six months to December 2016 and now boasts a global membership of roughly 600 million people.

The report noted that it was the introduction of Instagram’s “Stories” feature in mid-2016 that proved a boon for the social media site. Stories allowed users and brands to post short photo, video stories and even advertising that disappeared in 24 hours. 4C noted that “home and garden” was the number one category for increasing its spend with Instagram.

In second place for ad spend was LinkedIn, which saw a 130 per cent increase year on year. Pinterest was third with 109 per cent growth over the year.

Facebook advertising on 4C’s platform saw growth of 74 per cent between 2015 and 2016, while Twitter saw 24 per cent growth, according to the report.