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BizReport : Social Marketing : May 21, 2009
Is social media failing as a marketing medium?
Research findings from Knowledge Networks has put the cat among the social media pigeons and set the blogosphere buzzing with debate about the role of social media in advertising and marketing.
According to Knowledge Networks, while 83% of the Internet population (ages 13 - 54) participates in some way with "social media", less than 5% turn to these type of websites for advice pertaining to a purchase decision.
"Obviously, a lot of people are using social media, but they are not explicitly turning to it for marketing purposes, or for finding out what products to buy. It's really about connecting with friends, or connecting with other people," said Dave Tice, vice president at Knowledge Networks, via MediaPost.
"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."
But surely social media and world-of-mouth are hard to separate from each other?
Some believe that these findings fly in the face of previous research because of the ambiguity of the term "social media". It appears for the sake of this particular research the term may have been used to define more social networking oriented sites. The official definition for "social media use" was given as "having visited any one of 27 social sites or having used social features on other sites".
Consequently, just over half of those surveyed said "staying connected" to friends and family, as well as meeting new people, was what they "most liked" about participating in social media.
Many (63%) of users agreed having ads was a "fair price to pay" for use of social sites, only 16% said they are more likely to buy from advertising brands that support them.
Tags: advertising, Knowledge Networks, social feature, social marketing, social media, social networking
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