One in four business leaders with less social marketing knowledge than their customers

Using social media in advertising campaigns is still rather unknown territory for business leaders, The Globe and Mail reports in an article about a Facebook campaign gone haywire. These numbers stem from a research conducted by Pollara among 444 business and marketing leaders, for Veritas Communications, which will be published today.

85 percent of the respondents said that online forums such as Facebook, YouTube and blogs have become an essential component of the communications mix, and 46 percent see these channels become even more important than traditional media. In this light, it is striking that 26 percent of business and marketing leaders say they are less familiar with social media marketing than their own customers.

The article further dwells on a Facebook campaign by brewer Molson, whose challenge to post party pictures apparently turned into a display of hammered college students.

Companies need to realize that not all social buzz is good for them. Think about the Wal-Mart Facebook page that was covered in bad comments not so long ago. Viral advertising is a relatively cheap and potentially very effective marketing method, but needs to be planned and thought through carefully.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 27th, 2007 at 10:38 pm and is filed under Social Marketing. 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.

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