Social Media Not Holding Up to Surveys of Brand Managers

Is Social Advertising an Oxymoron? | Epicenter from Wired.com

In a recent online survey of brand managers, more than half of those responding declared themselves not interested in social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook. The poll, conducted in late October by GfK Roper for Epsilon, a leading marketing consultancy, found that only 35 percent of the marketers surveyed had any interest in using such sites. Blogs drew an almost equally tepid response.

Another study, this one by the research firm IDC, suggested their lack of enthusiasm might be well-placed. More and more users are spending more and more time on social networking sites, but the study found they aren't very responsive to ads there: Clickthrough rates were reported to be far lower than at other sites. On the web in general, nearly 80 percent of users clicked on at least one ad in the past year; on social networking sites, fewer than 60 percent did so.