Blogs, online videos and social networks are the most popular social media tools.  Additionally, podcasts, newsgroups, photosharing sites and wikis has also been utilized for social media.  However, no one media tool has emerged as a clear top performer.  In fact, the variance of the perceived effectiveness is so small that it is statistically insignificant in most surveys regarding social media.  Marketing with social media is different than traditional methods.  With social media, it is best to develop and nurture a relationship with the consumer until a sale occurs.  Therefore, you should not measure the effectiveness of social media with metrics such as market share.  It would be best to measure brand awareness, reputation and satisfaction levels to get a better understanding of the effectiveness of social media.

In the Society for New Communications Research (SNCR) survey, health care lagged behind the media and technology-based industries in adoption of social media.  The leading adopter of social media within the health care industry has been the pharmaceutical companies that continue their direct marketing to consumers.  As for age groups likely to be influenced by social media, the younger age groups are more frequent users of social media.  The respondents perceived people age 45 and under as more likely to use and be influenced by social media.  This does not mean that the boomers do not use social media but they use it less frequently.  In terms of household income, respondents suggested that middle-income brackets of $50,000 to $70,000 and $70,000 to $90,000 were the most likely to be influenced by social media.

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