by Jimmy Marks

New article from eMarketer today shows social media ad spending increasing in the next five years, but not in a significant way. There seems to be some confusing information being passed, as the article states that social media was the way Barack Obama won the presidential election. Sure, Obama's aggressive approach to social media helped, but I don't think it made all the difference in the world. I think it made more of an impact AGAINST the McCain campaign, who had the Sisyphean task of pushing themselves up a hill against the force of Tina Fey videos and Canadian prank callers. But, I digress.

eMarketer seems to think there should be much more money poured into social media advertising. Personally, $1 billion is a lot. Anything more than that is...more than $1 billion dollars. Seems pretty obvious, really. I'm not so sure THAT money is being wisely spent.

Maybe I'm the one person in the world who sees it this way, but not every channel is a "marketing channel". Imagine going into the hospital to deliver your first child. Everything's a success, the baby's perfectly healthy. You're happy, your family is a little bit bigger, and the nurse hands you your bundle of joy...who happens to be wrapped in a diaper with an ad for "Mountain Dew" on the bottom.

Are you thrilled? Probably not. You're maybe a little annoyed. It'd be the same way if your boss put a billboard in the middle of your office. Or if they sold coffins with thousands of NASCAR-esque decals on them. It doesn't work that way.

Naturally, I'm going to have to do some more research on this. The Groundswell awards give some indication of people/businesses that are actually using social media effectively (Twitter-buddy and fellow Blog-dude Tim McAlpine is still making waves with Y&F - click here to see the winners) . It seems that there is something to the idea that people bring into their lives what they want to bring in and ignore what displeases them. Why did this Motrin campaign fall flat? It was a string of videos that Motrin tried to make "viral", but ended up just being condescending. There's a story about it here.

But my theory is this: with more people spending more time online, there are spaces that are being created for work, for play, and for purchase. Let's say I want to join a network. I can join a work network (LinkedIn), a play network (Facebook), or a purchase network (Amazon). What about a blog service? I could view a business-type, work blog (TypePad), a fun, play-around type blog (Tumblr) or a blog that wants to sell me something (Millions of blogs do this). That's not to say there's no overlap (as in email, which is where more and more Americans go to get things done these days), but you get the idea.

If I get together an official report, I'll publish the results here. If it's REALLY good, I'll charge you for it.