New research sponsored by the Society for New Communications Research, of which I am a member, forecasts that spending on social media and conversational marketing will outpace that of traditional marketing by 2012.

What got me was this result: respondents noted that the primary obstacles currently preventing them from investing more in conversational marketing include:

"Manpower restraints" - 51.1%

"Fear of loss of control" - 46.9%

"Inadequate metrics" - 45.4%

"Culture of their organizations" - 43.5%

"Difficulty with internal sell-through" - 35.8%

As I said in my comment on New Communications Review page announcing the results, I'm a bit curious about the fact that "difficulty with internal sell-through" (35.8%) was last and "manpower restraints" was first. In my experience, I see "difficulty with internal sell-through," which is, by the way, greatly influenced by number 2,3 and 4 on the list, as number one. Incidentally, I also see number one on the list as a flimsy excuse by people who don't know enough to know what they don't know - after all, you're doing this because you can get more ROI with less manpower!