Do customers really want to engage with the brands?

The year began on a not so high note for the economy. But the digital media folks are bullish-as-usual.

I had a brainstorm featured on ChasingTheStorm. We were discussing Digital Media trends in 2009- specifically for Asia-Pacific. What came up were some really cool observations, some strong views and some star gazing.
Though the entire brainstorm could be viewed here - here is the sneak preview:

• We need to recognise that commerce in APAC is conservative, and that in the words of Deng Xiaoping we're 'crossing the river by feeling the stones'
• We could see a doubling of digital's share of the marketing spend to 4% in APAC
• Rise in spending on 'Social media' marketing
• Figures say that in China alone, the share of marketing spending on Social Media is about 20% of all digital marketing spending.

And some comments that the community here in particular could respond to-

• Other than SMEs running PPC campaigns on Facebook, social networking sites seem to be normally no more than bit players on display advertising schedules
• I haven't seen evidence that corporate profiles receive much traffic, and I'm not sure that modern media-savvy audiences really want to engage in conversations with their brands, they have better things to do
• The landscape is unnecessarily blurred by social concepts such as twitter
• Twitter's like a social event where everyone's talking and no-one's listening. I simply don't think that sufficient numbers will read it. Since this is a marketing cornerstone, it's a non starter.

What are your thoughts on the above? Let us contribute to the discussion.