Those who work in advertising often wonder if they live in a sort of bubble. You wonder, are civilians as active on social media and as inclined to pay attention to what brands are doing on Twitter, and is the rest of the world as preoccupied with that award-winning ad campaign that industry types can’t stop talking about?

The unsurprising answer is no, according to a study commissioned by San Francisco-based advertising agency Heat and conducted this past March by iThink, which found that people who work in advertising and marketing are worlds apart from the “normal” people when it comes to how they use social media and how they view social media marketing.

By the way, the survey also revealed that ad professionals tend to engage in more bad behavior at office holiday parties. More on that later.

First, mull these findings on how advertising/marketing professionals use Facebook as compared to the general public:

•71% of advertising/marketing professionals say they pay attention to brand posts in their Facebook news feed “all of the time” versus 23% of the general population.

As for Twitter: 92% of advertising/marketing professionals use Twitter to follow brands they like. 33% of the general population does so.

Should brands put more effort into interacting with consumers via social media?

•63% of advertising/marketing professionals “strongly agree” that they should; 23% of the general population “strongly agree”