Business
Social Media Wins the Budget War with 8 in 10 Marketing Leaders Reallocating Funds from Other Channels to Social, Signaling Major Shift in Business Strategy
With social search surging, more than half of marketing leaders plan to hire social media search specialists in the next year, ranking it their top
About this update from Sprout Social, Inc
[{"type":"text","content":"With social search surging, more than half of marketing leaders plan to hire social media search specialists in the next year, ranking it their top recruitment priorityNew platforms, shifting consumer habits, and emerging technologies are driving marketing leaders to move budgets from other channels to social, where the entire customer journey now unfoldsDespite ramping up investment in social, only 44% of marketing leaders consider their teams “expert” at measuring social’s business impact CHICAGO, Aug. 20, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- New research from Sprout Social (NASDAQ: SPT), an industry-leading provider of cloud-based social media management software, reveals that marketing leaders are significantly shifting their budget priorities this year, reallocating funds from traditional channels to social media. The 2025 Impact of Social Media Report, which surveyed 1,200 marketing leaders worldwide, finds that leaders believe social media drives key outcomes like revenue, customer acquisition, and customer loyalty. As budgets shift and social’s strategic importance grows, the report outlines how a focus on business-driven metrics and cross-functional data integration will be critical to securing executive trust and investment in the era of social intelligence. Social media is now seen as a primary driver of business value, shaping every stage of the customer journey. Marketing leaders credit it with delivering key outcomes such as customer acquisition (60%), customer loyalty (58%), and revenue (56%). As a result, 80% of marketing leaders globally plan to reallocate funds from other channels to social media. In addition, 87% plan to increase their paid social spend, and over 80% will increase their spend in influencer marketing and organic social. The investment extends to talent, with three-quarters of leaders planning to expand the headcount of their social teams in the next year. This increased investment is increasing the demands from leadership, too, particularly the need to effectively measure and prove social’s ROI. However, a significant gap exists in their confidence in social media overall and their team’s ability to tie social to broader business outcomes. Less than half (44%) of leaders rate their social team at the \"expert” level in measuring business impact, which is often blamed on a lack of sophisticated reporting. T...