US website eMarketer has predicted that American advertisers will spend $3.08billion in advertising on social networking sites this year.

This will represent a 55% increase on last year’s expenditure which was over $1.99 billion. The upwards trend will continue they say rising by a further 27.7% in 2012 bringing the total up to around $4billion.

This growth will mean that social networks will represent 10.08% of the total spent online in the US..

The estimate for 2011 is $1billion higher than eMarketers last estimate for social marketing spending in the US. The big difference in their projections is based on the gathering momentum of Facebook, which is the biggest player in the space.

Said eMarketer principle Debra Aho Williamson, who wrote the report ‘Worldwide Social Network Ad Spending: 2011 Outlook’: “In 2011, its global presence is something multinational advertisers cannot ignore.

 “If Facebook can continue to increase its global user base and boost the amount of revenue it generates per user, it could even surpass these forecasts. Facebook must continue to innovate its user experience and its ad platform.”