A new study reveals Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) across the country see worthwhile reasons to increase their investment in social media marketing in the years to come.

The study, conducted by Duke University, found CMOs across every industry plan to spend more of their marketing budget on social media (7% to 10%) over the next year.

In addition, many plan to allocate as much as 17% — on average — to social media five years from now.

What’s more telling is that B2C companies, which seem to have the greatest stake in reaching prospects via social media, plan to increase their social media spending by nearly 15% over the next five years. By then most marketers predict social media will account for nearly a quarter of their overall budget.

And yet, there still seems to be a lack of overall acceptance from the C-suite for social media resources that require additional spending.

In fact, 24% of marketers claim their social media strategy has no integration with the rest of the company whatsoever — an unfortunate statistic given so many studies have shown a there’s positive correlation between getting employees from every department in a company involved and the ROI social media marketing generates.

Source: “Marketers Plan to Increase Social Media Spend,” by Tanya Irwin, MarketingDaily, 9/6/11.

Tags: B2C, Chief Marketing Officers, CMOs, marketing budget, social media, social media marketing, social media spending