According to www.MediaBuyerPlanner.com, ad pages are down across the board.  Here are some of the titles that saw the biggest decrease in advertising sales:

• Architectural Digest: -49.4%
• Town and Country: -45.2%
• Conde Nast Traveler: -45.1%
• Gourmet: -42.7%
• Ebony:-40.1%

Well guess what? Advertising sales are UP on top blogs and social network sites.  According to The Nielsen Company, the amount of time online Americans spent on social network and blogging sites in August 2009 accounted for 17% of their total time spent on the internet.  This figure is almost triple the percentage of time spent a year ago.

Here is another amazing stat from the same company: estimated online advertising spent on top social network and blogging sites increased 119% from about $49 million in August of 2008 to $108 million in August 2009.  Wow.

Start-ups, with sometimes no budget for advertising, take note.  If you do have a few bucks to spent on advertising, go online with it.  It’s cheap and it reaches the masses.  Remember, grass-roots marketing: linkedIn, Facebook…that’s where your customers are and now it’s easy to go right to them.

Dream it. Believe it. Achieve it.