Really? Just half of them? Geeze, get with the times folks. Ok, that might sound a little harsh, but when you realize that social marketing does not simply mean "Digg" and "YouTube" it makes a little more sense. After all, using social marketing simply means going where the people are and attempting to either communicate with them or to get them to communicate with others about you. I find it fairly sad that less than half of all brand marketers have realized this yet.

According to new research released by Jupiter Media, just 38% of brand marketers claim to have used social marketing tactics last year. Thus, the jump to 48% this year is fairly significant.

One of the reasons cited was that 30% of people surveyed claim that they trust another person's opinion while just 10% of people claim that they trust an advertisement.

Wait, what now?

This is a surprise?

Really?

The only surprise to me is that the number of people that trust their contemporaries is ONLY three times higher than the number of people that trust ads.

So let's set the record straight once and for all.

Hey all you brand marketers! This social media thing? It's like word-of-mouth, but...you know...online...using new technology and stuff?

Yeah...use it. You should have been using it all along.