You say will succeed, I say the model has not been established yet. I think that it cannot be measured yet. I think you can brand a product, but even then it has to be subtle and has to fly under the radar. Advertising on social media sites is do-able but the WAY to do it has not been established yet.  There is no consistent model that advertisers can use so that they can plug in numbers and expect this kind of ROI from this type of action. It’s still wide open. I agree with the numbers, so in that sense, it’s easy to say that it WILL succeed. That’s a very easy statement to say. Advertising will succeed, it’s just WHAT type of model or vehicle is going to work best? That’s the big unknown.

I own and run http://www.WinePress.US the largest winemaking forum on the Internet, receiving over 7.5 million hits per month.   I sell banner ad space on there, and primarily my customers are in the home winemaking industry.   I have yet to see the need for someone like Pepsi or Chevrolet to want to advertise on my site, regardless how cheap my banner packages may be.  

My current advertisers are on there to advertise by "Association" or to be seen as a supporter of WinePress.US.

I’d like to see the social media ad market increase, but I don’t see it happening just yet.

Cheers, joel

After repeated discussions we posted profiles for our websites on various "social media" sites. All we have recieved to date is continuous requests from "adult orientated" members to join our "group". We will be taking down our profiles shortly as it has been a complete waste of time and resources.

Maybe when the "social sites" evolve into something more than a bulliten board for teenagers and escort services.

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I don’t need to add anything Rich, Dr Blockbuster knows all this!

 I hesitated before I read the article. My first thought is that looking back, the Internet has become so huge it’s overwhelming. In the process it has lost its freewheeling spirit of the early days. Which brings to question how are we going to thrive in this environment that we ‘the young and gifted’ pioneered to ride away from the real world dominated by the big corporation. I have low awareness of social media, but each time I hear someone mention Myspace or Facebook, it’s from the perspective of growing your business. So while we were sleeping, social media has pretty much become commercial media, hence the appropriateness of this article.

It’s great to see WPN taking a positive stand on the possible influence of social media and its communities. With that in mind, I’ll add my two cents in the moment saying that yes there is a potential market there. And no, it does not currently work the way "traditional" methods work.

To be effective in the social media marketing arena you’ve got to be willing to put in the time and effort to get to know others. If you’re a people-person that shouldn’t be hard, and even if you’re not it’s a great way to learn how to step outside yourself and find new strengths.

At this moment, social marketing is great for branding. Being "new" (which it isn’t but marketers are approaching it like it is) it does have its possibilities for taking the next step to list building and/or sales. However, it takes a lot of personal interaction if you’re on a shoestring budget or placing ads (buying them) in, for example, Facebook.

Social communities, comprised (in a majority?) of bloggers (who yes do buy stuff), makes it for the moment a tougher sell. The traditional view that you can’t market to social sites is going out the window – slowly but surely.

Aggressive marketing should be avoided at all costs. Choosing a few, and working them via active participation can lay the foundation for a future for your website.

Will be interesting to see where this all takes off to…. however, I almost cringe when marketers get their hooks on anything lol!