This year will be the year where businesses commit meaningful dollars in social engagement marketing and those dollars will come from brand budgets, not search, predicted Jeff Dachis, founder and CEO of Dachis Group.

In this interview, Dachis shares his view on why brands are starting to embrace social marketing as they seek to connect with their fans. Not only do brands need to understand where to put their dollars to work, they need to understand how to track the returns of their efforts. 

Dachis, a pioneer in online advertising as a co-founder of Razorfish which had an IPO back in the late '90s, has a lot riding on his prediction as his company works with major brands to help in this pursuit. The company has raised $30 million in financing to be a soups-to-nuts provider of big data analytics and implementer of creative campaigns.  

The Dachis Group has 350 measures that it rolls up into specific metrics, like mindshare, brand awareness, brand love and brand advocacy. The company also tracks more than 30,000 brands in order to give its clients perspective on how they're doing against their competition. Dachis works with more than 50% of the Fortune 500 companies.

Watch the interview to hear Dachis explain how his company can help big businesses and how Dachis Group fits in the ecosystem that consists of a wide variety of social media marketing vendors such as Buddy Media, Vitrue, Omniture, Radian6, Hearsay Social and more.