DreamGrow Social Media

Social Media Fails To Manifest As Marketing Medium

When I read that headline on MediPost I was certain that people who are saying that have yet to receive a clue. If you ask 100 people if advertising influences their decisions then the majority of respondents would say ‘no’. That does not mean you stop advertising. They just don’t know how media influences them.

The same thing goes for social networks. Marketers may dream that some day we can call them marketing networks but I wouldn’t hold may breath. People are there to connect with each other, to talk about their dog and how their day went. I do too. Sure, sometimes you stumble upon something great and insightful but for the most part it’s just chatter. When you try to turn it into a home shopping network people will just leave.

“What we’re seeing is that word-of-mouth is still the No. 1 most influential source, followed by TV. The influence of social media isn’t at the bottom of the list, but it is somewhere in the long tail of marketing – about the same as print ads, or online [display] ads.” says Dave Tice, vice president and group account director at Knowledge Networks, and the top analyst behind the report.

But there’s a bit more to it than that. We tend to talk about brands. Some say that about 1/6 of our conversations are about brands. Up until recently this talk was cheap, just hot air. Now, with the social networks, this talk is permanently recorded, indexed and searchable. Word of mouth has found a new carrier in the form of social media. A carrier where others can tap into your conversation.

This is the marketers opportunity to engage, change minds and sell. But tread carefully as the rules are still vague…
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Image credit: Alex Brazhnikov

Social Networks, Email at Top of 2010 Media-Buying List

Email is one of the most efective marketing channels there is. Specially if it’s your own houselist. One thing better than email is peer recommendation and that is found in social networks. Recent survey from Center for Media Research, conducted with InsightExpress shows that marketers know that.

Having a “presence on social networks” is one of the top priorities for marketers in 2010, with 56.3 percent planning to include social-media spending in their next-year’s marketing budget, according to the “2010 Media Planning Intelligence Study”. The number of marketers hoping or expecting to allocate dollars to social networks puts the medium second only to e-mail as 57.7 percent of respondents plan to use it.% “realistically” plan to include social media in their media plans next year.

via center-media-research-percentage-marketers-include-media-plans-2010.jpg.

Social Media Revolution

Social media on marketers menu for 2010

Social media is on the menu for most marketers next year. A survey of MediaPost subscribers found that more than half plan to have a presence on social networks as part of their marketing mix in 2010.

What is not clear from the report, however, is the level of spend the survey respondents intended to allocate to social media. Many companies are aware that they need to be in the social space but are still testing the water and large spends are unlikely. The resulting list of popular media for 2010 is as follows:

• Email, with 56.8% realistically planning to use it

• Social networks 56.3%

• Keyword search 49.7%

by Helen Leggatt via Social media on marketers menu for 2010 – Trends & Ideas – BizReport.