Spend Wisely. Finally, an Investment Roadmap for Social Business Buyers (Altimeter Report)

Like all other Investing, Invest in Social Business based on Market Research. Just as you would invest in your personal finances based on your family size, age, and market conditions you should be spending in social business with the same industry knowledge. With limited budgets, the corporate Social Strategist (read report) faces a spending dilemma. In 2010, the average annual social business budget at enterprise-class corporations was a mere $833,000. Now, Altimeter Group is publishing spending and deal size averages based on social business maturity for corporations to finally benchmark and cross-check their own spending efforts.

[Confused on How to Spend Tight Budgets, Social Business Buyers must use this Investment Roadmap Based on how Novice, Intermediate, and Advanced Corporations Spend]


Follow These Three Steps:

  1. Take the Quiz: Identify how mature your company is in social business (it’s in the full report, or see the single pager)
  2. Adjust investments: Cross match how others are spending in your same maturity level, as well as the next phase in maturity for your program forecast.
  3. Share report widely with vendors, agencies, and internal staff.

Buyers: Arm Yourself Before Purchasing Agency Services and Vendor Software
Use this data to both fuel your own internal budgets, but also bring this guide in all your agency and vendor introductory meetings, so they know you are in the know how spending is happening based on maturity. Send this report to your agency partners, software vendors, and consulting teams so they can understand the trends in spending and ensure that they will support your mission based on your existing maturity.

How Corporations Should Prioritize Social Business Budgets

View more documents from Jeremiah Owyang.


Open Research: Use It, Spread it Widely
The more you spread it, the easier it is for me to produce more reports. This research was 100% funded by Altimeter Group, and we are releasing it under Creative Commons so you can use it in your planning, presentations, and blog posts. You can download the report directly from Slideshare, and use the images provided below for your slides. I’ve embedded sharing buttons on the upper right side of this post, for your convenience. Lastly, I’d like to recognize Altimeter’s research team, Charlene Li, Christine Tran, and Andrew Jones for their assistance on this research report.

Key Graphics from the Report:

Match Your Spending To Your Social Business Maturity

Average Spending Rates From 2010-2011

Maturity Level of Corporate Social Business Programs

Maturity Drives: Budget, Team Size, Formation

Quiz: How Mature is Your Corporation in Social Business?:

How Mature is Your Company? Social Business Maturity quiz

View more documents from Jeremiah Owyang.


Related Links
I’ll cross post to those that add to the discussion, and will be active in the discussion in the comments below.

113 Replies to “Spend Wisely. Finally, an Investment Roadmap for Social Business Buyers (Altimeter Report)”

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  2. Pingback: Report: How Corporations Should Prioritize Social Business Budgets - Founder of Altimeter Group, Author of Open Leadership, Coauthor of Groundswell

  3. I think this report is simply brilliant and refects exacty what we’re seeing in terms of adoption cycles and corporate readiness. There is fear of being left behind this “social movement” and there is fear of investing in a manner that doesn’t result in optimal outcomes. Seems what’s needed is the right mix of software automation and services to help with guidance, training and best practices. Thanks for sharing such a terrific piece of work, Debbie

  4. I think this report is simply brilliant and refects exacty what we’re seeing in terms of adoption cycles and corporate readiness. There is fear of being left behind this “social movement” and there is fear of investing in a manner that doesn’t result in optimal outcomes. Seems what’s needed is the right mix of software automation and services to help with guidance, training and best practices. Thanks for sharing such a terrific piece of work, Debbie

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  6. Pingback: How Corporations Should Prioritize Social Business Budgets  | Emilie Ogez

  8. This is outstanding, Jeremiah. I’ve noticed a sharp uptick in the quality of blog articles coming from you since joining the Altimeter team. This is a prime example, and I’ll be incorporating bits into a social media marketing course I’m currently teaching.

  9. This is outstanding, Jeremiah. I’ve noticed a sharp uptick in the quality of blog articles coming from you since joining the Altimeter team. This is a prime example, and I’ll be incorporating bits into a social media marketing course I’m currently teaching.

  10. Thanks Ari. Two distinct changes. I’m so thankful to have a dedicated talented group of researchers (Christine and Andrew) who work directly with me as a team. Also, we’ve structured our business model to share as much as possible. I really appreciate you noticing.

  11. Thanks Ari. Two distinct changes. I’m so thankful to have a dedicated talented group of researchers (Christine and Andrew) who work directly with me as a team. Also, we’ve structured our business model to share as much as possible. I really appreciate you noticing.

  12. Excellent report Jeremiah – and very much in line with what I see amongst our F1000 high-tech client base.

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  16. You’ll see in the budgets that it includes “Staff to manage” so yes, it includes salaries. Soft costs (people) are the top line item spend. The second graph down indicates this.

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  25. Thanks Jeremiah! This was exactly what I was looking for. I’m developing a corporate social media program for my company and we’re currently figuring out how to budget for this program. I will definitely share this with my team 🙂

  26. Thanks Jeremiah! This was exactly what I was looking for. I’m developing a corporate social media program for my company and we’re currently figuring out how to budget for this program. I will definitely share this with my team 🙂

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  28. We thought you might like to know we added Spend Wisely. Finally, an Investment Roadmap for Social Business Buyers (Altimeter Report) to benQt: the online maturity models resource. If you have relevant contributions, please join and add them.

  29. Hi Jeremiah,
    Can you give me an example of a firm that does a great job integrating Facebook into its corporate site, rather than sending visitors “out” to Facebook?

    Thanks for your fine work!
    Jill Griffin

  30. Hi Jeremiah,
    Can you give me an example of a firm that does a great job integrating Facebook into its corporate site, rather than sending visitors “out” to Facebook?

    Thanks for your fine work!
    Jill Griffin

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  69. Jeremiah,

    This is a great resource as we are ramping up our social budgets.  I’m curious if outside legal costs ever came up as a topic in your conversations.  We are a regulated firm, and at $400+ / hr, regular advice from attorneys may become a “real number.” 

    Look forward to your thoughts.
    Dan Phelps

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  81. Jeremiah & Charlene – great work, as always. 
    On your graphic on how orgs. evolve, thing I think is missing is explicit outcomes.  I work with a lot of HR folks who think they own ‘social’ but know their outcomes are misaligned/prioritized with overall org. goals.  So any thoughts on the right “ownership” structure of what I think needs to be cross-functional?

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