Paid social media advertising spends are expected to continue to increase in coming years. Locally targeted ads and mobile spend will drive much of the growth, and by 2017, locally targeted social ad spend will more than triple.

As Facebook and other social networking sites begin to allow advanced targeting on their sites, ad revenue will continue to grow just as digital display advertising has in recent years. By allowing granular targeting, advertising via social media outlets becomes cost accessible to smaller businesses who will then be able to target their demo more effectively and for less money.

While Facebook currently garners the most dollars from advertisers due to their capabilities, their spend will likely decrease as other social media outlets put ad formats into place.

Are you already utilizing Facebook advertising? What about promoted tweets? We’re here to answer questions – just drop us a note in the comments or tweet at us @AndersonAdPR – cheers!

As most know, China has the largest population in the world, housing 1,344,130,000 people to-date. In a recent article by Justin Lafferty, he relays a Pingdom prediction that by 2016 Facebook may have more users than China has people, making Facebook bigger than any country in the world! With China’s stringent internet controls, Lafferty jokes that, “Facebook can’t legally get into China, but [soon], the social network might be bigger than the country.”

To some, these numbers may not be surprising, but to advertisers running Facebook campaigns who are hoping to make an impact for their clients, this hopeful statistic may inspire more dollars going toward their paid social media efforts. By 2016, having over a billion Facebook users will make it one of the most robust avenues to reach consumers.

What’s that? You have a hankering for some marketing infographic magic? Oh fine. We’ll oblige.

Check out Hubspot‘s collection of what they feel were 20 of 2012′s most memorable marketing moments below. From Facebook hitting 1 Billion users and acquiring Instagram, to the Twitter-LinkedIn split and Newsweek’s move to go all-digital as of January 2013, this one’s got it all covered.

What do you think? Was there anything that you think missed this list? Sound off in the comments below or Tweet at us @AndersonAdPR.

Cheers for a happy, healthy New Year from all of us at ANDERSON. See you in 2013!

Fear not, blogophiles. Your infographic fix is here — this week, courtesy of Symphony Teleca, by way of Mashable.

Read on. Be enriched. And the next time your C-level exec says  they “get” needing to be present on social media, but they don’t understand the value in terms of moving the sales needle – you just reference this infographic…. and all of the hard statistics that make it so compelling.

HubSpot, nailing it [again].

Check out the marketing pros’ latest infographic below: “Visual Content Trumps Text in Driving Social Media Engagement” – further evidence of our already tried and true practices’ success. As if you needed more…

Suggested Tweet:

The [very] real power of rolling visual content into your social media engagement strategy http://ow.ly/d8mm0 via @AndersonAdPR

Been wondering if or why your business should take the social media plunge? The folks over at Wix.com created a pretty airtight infographic to tell you exactly why.

For just about any business, “it’s about generating a conversation with clients where they already hang out”. They said it first, but we couldn’t agree more.

Have a look below for more nuggets of social media goodness!

When we got wind of PR Newswire and CrowdFactory teaming up for an infographic we got excited.

So just how well does social media lend itself to press release engagement? See what the two powerhouses found…

New data from PR Newswire and CrowdFactory offers insight into social engagement around press releases

As I approach the three month mark on my employment here at ANDERSON I am still amazed at how exciting each new first is.

With 2012 right around the corner we are working on building the media plans for the new year for our media clients and on the PR side of things, there is never down time. It’s exciting, ALL THE TIME!

There is always a release to be drafting, a piece to be pitching, an event to be promoting, there is constant activity. And being a part of the activity? I love it!

I have done multiple press releases and even sent a couple out on the wires which,  in case you were wondering, was maybe one of the most exciting things of my young life (maybe I need to get out more…) When you see a release you wrote popping up on dozens and dozens of sites and being redistributed and shared, it is such a high. To know your words are doing their job for your client? It is such a rush.

Between blogging, tweeting, Facebook-ing, drafting, pitching, following up, reporting, and using my Associated Press Stylebook for every step along the way, I couldn’t be more excited to see what I get to do next!