• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, August 26, 2015

Social media spending is set to continue growing at a fast clip, according to a new quarterly survey of advertising and media agencies conducted by STRATA, a provider of media buying and selling software.

Overall 20% of agencies surveyed by STRATA said they are currently allocating anywhere from 11%-25% of their total ad budgets to paid social media advertising in the third quarter, representing a 24% increase on average from the first quarter of the year. Meanwhile roughly a quarter of agencies are devoting 6%-10% of their total ad budgets to paid social.

Unsurprisingly, Facebook is the dominant player in social media advertising, with 93% of advertisers and media planners surveyed saying they plan to use it in their campaigns. Also popular were YouTube at 57%, Twitter at 52%, and LinkedIn at 29%.

STRATA noted that the continued growth in social spending goes hand in hand with the larger shift by consumers to mobile devices, with STRATA president Joy Baer stating: “There's an undeniable correlation between the rise in social media advertising with mobile device behavior… when you consider that around 60% of digital media time spent in the US is on smartphones and tablets, then it makes perfect sense to reach the audience in the apps that they're already accessing.”

Meanwhile, the proportion of media buyers who said they were more interested in using streaming and online video increased from 45% to 66%. Last but not least, 17% of agencies are using programmatic to carry out 20%-40% of their business, up 244% from last year.