Everyone loves a good survey – and a survey can certainly be an effective marketing tool, especially when the numbers say what you want them to say.

But if your survey is to have any credibility, you need to tell people how many qualified respondents it is based upon.

This came up today because I was poring over the results of AdMedia Partners’ 2010 Market Survey, its 16^th annual survey of executives with leading media and marketing services firms, the results of which are covered in another post. I was initially attracted to the survey because it appeared to be based on a huge number of respondents – more than 7,400.

At least, that was my take after reading the survey methodology, which begins, “This report is based on a Web-based survey of more than 7,400 domestic and international executives in the advertising, marketing services, digital marketing, marketing technology, media or digital media businesses and related venture capital/private equity investors.”

Just to be sure that meant more than 7,400 respondents, I called AdMedia Partners. As it turns out, that figure reflects how many folks got the survey; the company doesn’t disclose how many responded. In the survey’s 16-year history, that’s just always the way it’s been done, says AdMedia Partners managing director Seth Alpert, although he’s not sure why. I tried to get a ballpark response rate out of him, but all he’d say was that it’s on par with “the norm” for such undertakings – whatever that is – and that it was less than 50%.  (My sense was that he wanted to tell me, that he couldn’t think of a good reason not to – but I’m guessing.)

To me, it’s not only a mistake to fail to disclose the number of respondents to a survey, it’s a disservice to your audience, which deserves to know whether your results are based on 20 opinions or 2,000.  I’ve done lots of surveys in my time, mostly as features editor for Network World, when we had a series of surveys we did each year. Always we were concerned about getting a high response rate so the results would be statistically valid, especially for our salary survey, where it was important to get enough responses for each geographic region. If we didn’t have enough responses for a specific job title in a given region, we’d fess up that the sample wasn’t statistically valid, give the results we had, and let the reader decide what it all meant.

Any company that wants to use survey results as part of its marketing strategy should follow a similar path. While the Web has made surveys far easier to conduct than in the days when we relied on snail mail, it’s still not exactly easy to get a high number of responses. But resist the temptation to fudge the response rate, or to simply not disclose it at all – the credibility of the survey and perhaps even your company is on the line.

AdMedia Partners earlier this week released the results of its 16^th annual survey of media and marketing services executives.  This appears to be a fairly significant undertaking, as the survey goes to some 7,400 executives in the advertising, marketing services and related industries, according to AdMedia Partners. (I say “appears to be” because, oddly, AdMedia Partners won’t disclose how many of those folks actually completed the survey – which is the subject of another post.)

First, the good news – sort of: folks are optimistic that the worst of the recession is behind us, with 68% believing we’re in an economic recovery. Consequently, they expect an increase in advertising budgets, with a median increase of 3% overall and 10% in interactive advertising.

While a 3% increase is certainly better than the 5% decrease in the prior year’s survey, it’s still not much. In fact, it’s 40% less than the 5% increases respondents in the 2006, 2007 and 2008 surveys reported.  On the other hand, you’re probably getting better deals for your dollar so maybe it’s a wash.

Where things get really interesting is in perceptions of online content companies and social media.  Nearly half of respondents (45%) consider growth opportunities for sites that focus on user-generated content to be overrated, while a whopping 63% think the same for social media sites.

At the same time, however, when asked about plans for expansion in 2010, 78% of respondents indicated one or more online marketing sectors, with the most popular choice being “word-of-mouth/social media marketing” at 55%.

So, respondents consider social media to be overrated, but that’s not going to stop them from expanding into social media.

Now I’m not bashing social media here; I do think it has a role to play in marketing.  I wouldn’t be writing this blog if I didn’t.  But from survey results like this, it’s clear that there’s no shortage of confusion over what that role is and how effective social media will ultimately be.

Of course, where there’s confusion, there’s opportunity. So I’d say marketers are right to get into the social media fray and try to figure out what works.

The folks at Vertical Systems Group are predicting that Ethernet business services will hit $40.2 billion in revenue by 2014, the result of double-digit growth over the next few years.  I believe it for a couple of reasons.

One, these folks have been following the carrier market for more than two decades and they know what they’re doing. In my reporting days at Network World, I routinely turned to Rosemary Cochran and Rick Malone for analysis of the news of the day and they never disappointed.

Two, when I talk to end users about the WAN services they use (typically as part of my work recruiting speakers for Network World’s IT Roadmap events), I consistently hear about carrier Ethernet. And what I hear is nearly universally good.  The services are easy to implement  – it’s just Ethernet, after all – and offer great performance.

Carrier Ethernet is an area that should be ripe for some good case studies, as it’s a real success story. I know (because I wrote them) that NTT America has churned out a couple, on clients including Internet radio station Pandora and hosting company SoftLayer, resulting in some good coverage.

Apple last week posted a warning on its developer web site that will won’t stand for iPhone apps intended to provide location-based advertising.

“If your app uses location-based information primarily to enable mobile advertisers to deliver targeted ads based on a user’s location, your app will be returned to you by the App Store Review Team for modification before it can be posted to the App Store,” the posting says.

What about people who might want such offers?  Some great location-based apps are available for the iPhone. I use one called AroundMe that’ll give me a list of nearby restaurants, gas stations, hotels, movie theatres and lots more.  If I click on restaurants, I’m probably looking for a place to eat and there’s a decent chance I haven’t already decided on one. A nicely targeted offer of a discount could well sway my decision – and I’d likely welcome it, frugal sort that I am. And if I take it upon myself to download an app knowing full well it comes with location-based ads, then what’s the harm?

I hope for the sake of GPS-aware marketers and discount-hunters alike that Apple soon changes its tune on this decision.

Penton Media has filed for Chapter 11, but it seems like a kinder, gentler bankruptcy to me.  When I picture a company filing for bankruptcy, I envision people hanging their heads in shame, massive layoffs, huge budget cuts and no more K-cups in the kitchen.

None of that appears to be happening at Penton. Rather, according to the company’s press release, the restructuring “will result in the elimination of $270 million of the Company’s debt.” How do I get in on that kind of deal? It reminds me of an episode of “The Office,” where the boss, Michael Scott, thinks that merely shouting the words “I declare bankruptcy,” would make all of his debt go away. Not too far from the truth, apparently.

But there’s more: “Further, there will be no management changes or change in control of the Company.  ‘Operationally, nothing will change during this debt restructuring,’” according to Sharon Rowlands, Penton’s CEO.

I know times are tough in publishing and probably the Penton management team includes some talented, upstanding folks. But if a company manages to mount $270 million in debt, enough to force it into bankruptcy, shouldn’t some changes be made?

I’ve been helping Network World line up speakers to present end user case studies at its IT Roadmap events for more than four years now.  IT Roadmap is a one-day event held in 10 U.S. cities that covers multiple technologies in separate breakout sessions and workshops. (Learn more here.)

In the course of finding folks who can present on the various topics covered at the events, I talk to lots and lots of practicing IT professionals.  I mean lots.  I talk to them about what projects they’ve implemented lately and how the projects went, to get a sense for the topics they’d be able to talk about at an IT Roadmap event.

Consistently, the topic I have the most trouble finding folks to speak about is network management. This is a topic that I’ve followed to varying extents for about 20 years, dating back to when it was part of my beat as a Network World reporter in the late 1980’s and early ‘90s.  Back then, the big topic was being able to remotely monitor and control various pieces of network and computing equipment from a central console – a la HP OpenView or CA NSM.

It strikes me that things haven’t changed all that much. The products are out there, to be sure, but an awful lot of folks haven’t implemented them. The reasons they cite most often are purely budgetary – they just don’t have the money.  As a result, many favor open source products that they acknowledge are somewhat less functional – but it’s hard to beat the price.

I suspect many of these folks are going to run into trouble as they look to take advantage of technologies including virtualization and cloud computing. Every time a new technology comes down the pike, it brings with it its own set of management challenges.

Virtualization and cloud are no different. Just consider the challenges inherent in managing applications that may be running on multiple servers at the same time, of multiple operating environments on the same piece of hardware and of virtual servers that may move from one physical environment to another.

If you’re in an IT shop that isn’t quite up to snuff on the network and systems management front in the first place, then you want to implement virtualization and/or cloud computing, you’re going to be that much more behind.

Of course from a marketer’s perspective, that should be a great opportunity – virtualization is all the rage and there’s a strong case to be made that IT shops can only get the most out of it if they have proper management tools.