According to an article on Media Post: "Social networking now accounts for one of every five minutes spent online, making it the most popular online activity worldwide, according to a comprehensive new report from comScore. What’s more, it leads all content categories in the number of display ads delivered, accounting for more than 1 in 4 U.S. display ad impressions (28%). "
My Commentary:
After spending over 10 years working with magazines, including launching a national inflight magazine for a major airline, my take why social media is a distant cousin in advertising spend is because the actual people who allocate advertising budgets are simply not involved in Social Media themselves.
Social Media is relatively new, limited by few metrics, sceptics abound and partial resources to quantify ROI. From my days in magazines, justifying budget expenditures were and still are compared by readership, reach, audience, demographics and so on. It tended to lean still towards coupons or call to action ads. It is far easier to rationalize after someone walks in or inquires after newspaper or radios generate the response. Marketers have had years to validate traditional advertising.