• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, June 23, 2008

Trying to explain the underlying value of “time spent” as a metric for measuring the impact of social media on advertising and brands, Joe Plummer cited two major insights in the burgeoning field of neuroscience research.

“There's a lot of new evidence in neuroscience that there is two fundamental ways we learn,” Plummer told the OMMA Social audience this afternoon. “One is called the flash sort of learning. It's sort of instantaneous. ‘I got it.' It happens really fast.”

“The second way of learning,” he continued, “is the creep.” That's a longer cumulative process that leads to an epiphany Plummer said.

“So far the evidence indicates that creep actually has a bigger impact on long term memory than flash,” indicating that social media that build long-term, continuous relationships may be better than ones that trigger an instantaneous viral response.

“I think its the critical metric of engagement, but be careful how you slice time spent,” Plummer shared. “If you look at it on an individual basis over time, I think it will tell you something powerful.”