As we all know Social media has become an essential element of a marketers armoury - it not only offers a fascinating insight nto your customers point of view on your brand / sector but also provides a perfect opportunity to get involved and start talking to them and providingthem with what they want. So it was good to learn that, according to a new report from Jupiter Research, titled "When Good Social Marketing Goes Bad," marketers are using consumer-generated media in their marketing plans, but are failing to do the leg work on the back end to keep things going. According to the research, 35% of marketers have CGM on their on sites and 21% have an online social networking profile. However, only 29% of marketers who use social media tactics follow through and monitor online discussions on an ongoing basis -- and a whopping 17% of marketers who use social marketing tactics don't monitor online discussions at all.

This does not surprise me at all - in fact I would have thought that the figure would be far higher - too many brands think that by setting up a Facebook account and adding an ecrm stream to their site that is social media job done when anyone who is even vaguely involved in this new media opportunity knows this is just the tip of a very large iceberg. It seems we all have a long way to go to change this perception but it is a fight worth fighting with huge rewards to those who persevere - let's get going !