Social Networks Make Lousy Marketing Tools? Patience.

It turns out people like to socialize on social networks according to Knowledge Networks, but we still don't go there to buy stuff, as indicated by user opinion about advertising on social network sites. This is news?

"Social media has reached critical mass, with 83% of the Internet population now  using it - and more than half doing so on a regular basis - according to new research being released today by Knowledge Networks. But for all the media industry's hype and buzz surrounding social networks, microblogs, and other social networking platforms, the genre has failed to become much of a marketing medium, and in the opinion of the Knowledge Networks' analysts, likely never will." - Joe Mandese, MediaPost

As a social network user and marketer, I think the real potential for social networks to influence purchase decisions will remain untapped for a while longer. I believe this because I see three factors in this nascent space that have yet to mature:

1. User Behavior: We users are still figuring out how we want to use social networks and until our behavior demonstrates meaningful patterns, it's of minimal use to the larger marketing economy. How many of us are now making Facebook 'friends and family' and LinkedIn 'business colleagues' when only a year ago we were flocking to add our cube mates to our Facebooks so we had someone to talk to?
2. Social Network Tools: Social networking technology is still evolving applications and tools to help us socialize around activities other than swapping links and photos. Facebook Causes and Dell's SWARM are both recent examples of efforts to help us involve our friends in the marketing process in ways we (and they) can be enthusiastic about. Until we can refer friends to spending money in ways that aren't socially abhorrent, but actually provide us a social service, we won't see much uptick in social networks playing a obvious, measurable and positive role in the buying process.
3. Measurement: The tracking tools to help us watch the stats on where "social impressions" really lead as they wend their way through shares on various networks are really in their infancy, but some look very promising.

When these three areas begin to mature, we'll have the basis on which to make judgments about how social networks will help the marketing process. Until then, we're trying to evaluate the new paradigm using the old world view.

Incidentally, Joe Marchese (not to be confused with Joe Mandese above) had a great rebuttal to Joe 1's article by using simple logic to see through the shifting paradigms:

Dave says: "'Obviously, a lot of people are using social media, but they are not explicitly turning to it for marketing purposes, or for finding out what products to buy. It's really about connecting with friends, or connecting with other people,' says Dave Tice, vice president and group account director at Knowledge Networks, and the top analyst behind the report. 'What we're seeing is that word-of-mouth is still the No. 1 most influential source, followed by TV...'"

Joe 2 says: "This point blows my mind. I thought that it had already been established that effective social media campaigns generate word-of-mouth. Online is about people connecting to each other, as mentioned above, and if brands can get people to talk to each other about their brands, they are in effect generating word-of-mouth. So how can word-of-mouth be the most influential source, while at the same time social media, one giant word-of-mouth engine, is ineffective?" - Joe Marchese, MediaPost

Go Joe 2.