Marketers prefer social sites to mobile, gaming

According to Forrester Reasearch analyst Brian Haven, the jump to social marketing has been relatively fast. About 40% of marketers are using RSS ads, up 10% from 2006 and about 34% are creating brand or company blogs, up 13% from 2006 numbers. An indication that the social media revolution should be seriously considered by marketing teams.

"Consumers are leaving marketers behind and the advice now is this is not a fluke behavior -- it's the way things are going and it's time for marketers to take decent strides into social computing technologies," said Brian Haven, Forrester Research analyst (via AdAge).

Mobile marketing is another area that Haven expects to see large growth. Though consumers have been slow to adopt mobile Internet, providers are clearing up connection problems and with more competition entering the market, the cost of mobile usage will begin to go down. When that happens, more consumers are expected to flock to mobile Internet and companies need to be ready to serve ads, content and programming.

As far as in-game advertising, the report indicates a need to really consider whether in-game advertising would benefit a company or if they would market in-games simply to be on the cutting edge.

Whatever solution marketers choose, the report suggestions trying these new marketing choices because the consumers will be there. Marketers who don't begin to experiment with blogs, mobile ads and in-game ads will likely lag behind those who do.

Tags: blog advertising, in-game advertising, mobile marketing, online marketing