Are corporations looking to spend more on social media or less? Plenty of brands are still sitting on the sidelines looking in at social networking sites and user-generated content, but how many are going to start investing in it as part of their marketing strategies?

Two recent surveys give conflicting answers. First up is the rosy view of the third annual Online Customer Engagement Report, produced by online publisher E-consultancy and digital agency cScape, which took a look at how a degenerating economy will affect customer behaviour and psychology. It says that more businesses are going to invest in social media as a way to focus on customer engagement, though fewer than half said they actually had a strategy to do so.

Of those who said they had a strategy, 41 per cent said they are monitoring online product and service ratings and reviews, 37 per cent are interested in user-generated content and about 36 per cent are looking at blogging as an option. More than one-third said they were making advertising on social networks a priority too. Micro-blogging tools such as Twitter also showed an increase, but still trail the pack with only seven per cent of respondents saying they’re using them.

Meanwhile, a survey by Epsilon said that marketing executives aren’t actually turning to social media in the droves we expect. More than half of the respondents showed little interest in incorporating social networking sites into their marketing plans. Only 35 per cent said they were very or somewhat interested in doing so. Only 10 per cent said they are using Facebook and MySpace in their marketing.

The results of these surveys are a bit of a head scratcher. The lessons that marketers should be learning are these: if their markets are engaged in social media (and most are), then they should be, AND if they’re not using the technology available to engage their customers, they’re missing a great opportunity. My view is that social media is a way for companies to take a step back to the intimacy they had with their customers before they all migrated to mass media advertising. Advertising will remain a tool, but word of mouth will always trump it for effectiveness.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 27th, 2008 at 10:57 am and is filed under Social media and blogging, old media vs new media, Blogroll, blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.