Report: Social media's global revenues to hit $16.9 billion

When social media becomes a part of people’s daily lives, the prosperous foreground of it generates amazing revenue from the virtual world.


The latest report released by Gartner noted that social media's global revenues are set to reach US$16.9 billion this year, a nearly 43 percent jump from $11.8 billion last year.

Social media advertisements contribute the most to global revenues. Gartner predicts advertising revenue will hit $8.8 billion this year. The Next Web noted that soaring advertising revenue not only depends on the Facebook-style system, in which revealing lots of users’ information, helping companies target their potential customers, but the high level of engagement offers click-through rates for brands.

In addition, social media games play a pivotal role in the straight-up revenues. Gartner says that the benefits will be caused by the sale of virtual goods, one example being virtual gifting outside of a gaming environment.

Moreover, what can shift and increase the revenues of social media will be the efficiency of analyzing the colossal amount of data from users. Companies may want to understand their audience more and attract them. Neha Gupta, the senior research analyst at Gartner, says:

“In the short and medium terms, social media sites should deploy data analytic techniques that interrogate social networks to give marketers a more accurate picture of trends about consumers’ needs and preferences on a customized basis. In the meantime, however, they should also continue to exploit other channels of revenue like mobile advertising and social commerce.”

Instead of the good performance of social media this year, the report points out that there won’t be any innovative revenue models of social media until at least 2016.

“New revenue opportunities will exist in social media, but no new services will be able to bring significant fresh revenue to social media by 2016. The biggest impact of growth in social media is on the advertisers,” Gupta explains.

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