Net Imperative ran an interesting story about the blocks to and attitudes towards social media.  The basis of the story was research was called out by Sapient Interactive.  Lack of understanding was predictably one of the main blockers to implementing campaigns but the good news is

“50% of the respondents feel that 2009 will be the year of social networking for marketers.” 

Only a small number (9%) felt that social networking is over rated.  Interestingly Twitter ranks equal with blogs on areas the marketers reported as areas they are looking at.  I imagine Twitter would not have ranked so highly last year.

“Outside of social networking campaigns, the most leveraged social media by marketers is media sharing sites like YouTube and Flickr (62%), followed closely by micro-blogs such as Twitter (59.8%) and corporate/campaign blogs (59%).” 

The Marketing Institute of Ireland was similar in terms of more budget going online in a survey done with AMAS.  Not surprisingly 64% reported using email campaigns with social media coming in fairly low at 20%.  Of most interest is the 28% who reported using Online PR but that could be due to the definition. 

I am certainly seeing more interest on the ground in terms of marketing departments becoming more interested in social media and online campaigns.  There appears to be a greater acceptance of testing these platforms and integrating them with other campaigns.

Its clear there is still a distance to go in terms of greater appreciation but hopefully the good case studies coming from Facebook and Twitter will encourage more to embrace and integrate social media. 

 Whether 2009 is the year for social media or not….we will just have to wait and see.