Stick with spam

It's always hard to argue with research but this latest bit makes me scratch my head.

The research is regarding social networks and the belief that they have less impact on sales than, say, email campaigns.

Mylene Mangalindan of the Wall Street Journal posted on the Wall Street Journal's Business Technology blog results of a recent survey by the National Retail Federation's Shop.org. (Click here for the full post in the Wall Street Journal.)

According to the survey:

About 65% percent of retailers say that social-network advertisements would be an area of increased focus this year, while 55% of retailers say widgets, small, targeted software applications, will be a great focus, according to the study.

But Shop.org issues a warning:

Social Computing efforts continue to be largely experimental with little direct correlation to sales,” warns Shop.org. It says that ads on social networks have “notoriously low click-through rates, far below traditional banner ads and much lower than paid search ads.” It recommends more-proven marketing investments like email.

I shouldn't be one to argue with stats but I find it hard to believe that email campaigns can be any more effective than a campaign on a social network site. Furthermore, the problem here seems to be they're measuring impact by comparing email campaigns to banner ads (proven failures) and paid search ads which are declining in impact. The ad industry seems to want to measure everything the old way, through ways they've done with TV and print. Instead, they should recognize that users see social networks as a great gathering spot and figure out ways to provide compelling interesting messages. Advertising isn't about reaching people sitting on their couch too lazy to turn the channel. It's about engaging people and social networks do just that.