Online in Troubled Times

THE NEW MEDIA WAVE

When it comes to the new interactive channels that have gotten so much press in the last year, respondents showed much more interest in some media than in others.

As noted above, about one-third of respondents said they plan to run social campaigns in 2009. Chances are good they'll be looking at Facebook as a platform, because that network had the highest number of respondents as active brand members: more than 38% of those polled, compared to about 22% with a MySpace presence and 29.9% on other social networks.

And one-quarter of those asked said that while their companies had no current presence in social networks, they are considering establishing one this year. Only 17.6% said they would continue to do without any social network profile at all in 2009.

Marketers were equally taken with advertising on Web-enabled smartphones. About 13.3% said they ran a smartphone campaign last year and would do so again; another 24.6% said they were planning their first one in 2009.

Microblog platform Twitter, however, still has few brand friends. Only about 26% of respondents either have a Twitter account or plan one for 2009.

METHODOLOGY:

The survey was conducted by Penton Research and mailed in February 2009 to 15,585 subscribers to Promo and the Promo Interactive newsletter. Results are based on surveys returned by 254 qualified participants and conform to accepted marketng research methods, practices and procedures.