Advertisers More Social-Media Obsessed Than The Rest Of Us: Survey

Ever feel that advertisers don't get you? Maybe it's because they bury their faces in Twitter all day.

A recent survey by Heat ad agency in San Francisco revealed big differences in online networking between the ad world and the real world.

About 97 percent of ad and marketing professionals have a Facebook account compared to 82 percent for the rest of us. But the disparity gets way bigger from there. Twitter is used by 92 percent of ad professionals and just 39 percent of the general public. Other platforms such as Google, Pinterest and Spotify also show large gaps.

When respondents were asked if they agree that advertising companies should invest more in Facebook and the like, 63 percent of ad people said they strongly agreed compared to just 23 percent of so-called "normal" people.

"This simply demonstrates that, as marketers, we need to have perspective when we think about attracting and engaging consumers," Heat President John Elder wrote in an email to The Huffington Post on Monday. "As into the latest technology as we can be, it's important to remember that it's but one piece of the puzzle in designing a way to reach a target audience. It's important not to get overly caught up in the hype around the new thing."

Heat's clients include HBO, Bank of the West and Huffington Post parent company AOL. The agency contracted out the survey of 150 ad pros and 150 non-ad workers to an independent researcher. Adverblog.com published the chart.

It seems the one moment ad people are able to stop liking, sharing and tweeting is the office party. According to the survey, ad people are far more likely to use illicit drugs, vomit from too much drink, and have sex with a coworker.

Wrote Elder: "We found that degenerate behavior is more prevalent among marketing folks than the general public, which perhaps just goes to show that some things never change."

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