Advertisers need social media triage

Image by Corey Templeton via Flickr

Supposition: Any time survey data is used to support "trends", be skeptical. In fact, you can ignore it all together. For all (yes, I said all) surveys are deeply flawed.

Take this report by the Association of National Advertisers. It's purports to tell us that "marketers [are embracing] new media platforms, social media and viral videos". Well sure. We know that. No big surprise. What is surprising are the numbers reported by the surveys. See if you can guess what is wrong here:

In 2009, the most effective newer media platforms were as follows:

* Search engine marketing (SEM) (65 percent)
* Own Web site (59 percent)
* Search engine optimization (SEO) (55 percent)
* E-mail marketing (45 percent)

I'm sorry -- newer media? That's more new that new, right? And even if it isn't, I'm pretty sure that it's 2009. We're well past the hump where things like having a website and being concerned about search engine positioning are "new" concepts.

Or maybe we're not.

Maybe we're really ahead of the curve. Maybe we live in the present, but the vast majority of the world is still living in the deep past, circa 2004. And we must remember that we cannot force everyone else to catch up. We have to be able to relate to them. To put it in words you'll understand -- be backwards compatible. Can you be?