Here’s something completely and utterly shocking…according to Social Media Survey of marketing professionals by McCann Erickson. Two-thirds of marketing experts have admitted that they don’t understand social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. This comment came even after agreeing that social marketing media was here to stay.

The revelations showed that 86 percent of them thought social media is more than just a fad, reports Brand Republic.

Despite their confidence in social media 65.6 percent marketing pros said they didn’t know how to use it for marketing.

The breakdown shows:
Facebook (72.8%), Twitter (42.4%) and LinkedIn (40.2%) are the most popular social networking sites that marketers actually use – followed by YouTube (28.3%), Flickr (14.1%), MySpace (10.9%), Bebo (3.3%) and Plaxo (1.1%).

Around half said their IT departments usually blocked access social media sites, which accounts why many can’t do any monitoring and see what’s happening with their brands.

Joanna Randall, head of PR at McCann Erickson, said: “This study highlights that some of the UK’s major businesses are ignoring social media channels – but they do so at their peril. Word of mouth is now more powerful than ever – opinions can be shared with a global audience at the click of a button.

“We all have the ability to influence, both positively and negatively, and therefore as marketing professionals we should be considering how best to harness the power of social media.”