Social Media Marketing and the Skeptics
February 19, 2008
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I’m heading out of town early today and don’t have much time for a long post, but just wanted to share sort of a rambling.
Over the last couple of weeks in particular, I’ve seen a number of posts questioning the value of social media marketing. Some of these (like the first link) are helpful and quite thoughtful and rightly say, “Hey, this isn’t for everyone.”
Others, like this one, make some really flawed assumptions, like the idea that social media marketing is nothing more than getting top bookmarkers. Uh, no. (Although he is right that social media marketing won’t work if your product sucks, and could make your life harder.)
Still others bemoan (correctly) the “get rich quick” shlocks that act like your next podcast will be printing money.
This reminds me in some ways of the Internet gold rush around, say, 1996 or so. Then, as now, we’ve got a new way to communicate. And some people are going to abuse it and do dumb things. But other people are going to figure it out, do it right, be thoughtful on the metrics and ROI, and build from there. Some cynics will say “Nobody has definitive ROI yet,” while someone with foresight is out creating it.
So, you can be a slickster or a thought-leader. You can be a cynic, or you can have vision as to how these new tools might help your company.
Nobody, including me, has all the answers. But if you don’t think that two-way communication has the power to revolutionize business, you haven’t been paying attention.
That’s my quick rant for the day… Enjoy!
Comments
9 Responses to “Social Media Marketing and the Skeptics”
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Good post.
I am the one who said social media marketing is another name for reaching the Digg Home Page.
Looking at the get rich quick mentality of the SMM marketers, I may as well be Guilty as Charged.
Look to read more of your enlightening posts.
Cheers.
Social media ultimately empowers the consumer, because many people like to have their potential purchases validated by others first.
So for companies with good products and services, social media will ultimately help them, if it’s managed in such a way that any negative word-of-mouth is quickly dealt with.
Hiya… thanks for dropping by on this conversation and adding some conmentary. I am talking to a handful of SMM professionals to better define/understand the true valuations for myself and other web marketing ethusiasts.
The dicussion is certainly one worth having… ( safe travels to ya)
Dave
Yes, yes yes. When I attended the Podcast and New Media Expo last August I was annoyed that most of the panels were “how do we make money off this?”
I think too many people suffer from “instant gratification” syndrom. They get one giant hit, or are overpromised the “wonderful power of Social Media” - that they expect even with a bad product or no news to get a lot of attention.
Great post. I, too, have been reading an incredible amount of blog posts and other articles questioning the value of social media marketing. Yes, it might not work for everyone, yes it takes some work to get some results, and no, it is NOT a get rick quick scheme.
But, if used correctly, you’ll get a great return on your investment. But this requires patience.
After reading “Every Nonprofit Tries to Give People Information, Which is Power” (http://www.pbs.org/idealab/2008/02/every-nonprofit-tries-to-give.html), I was struck by the comment, “We, the actively involved of all these overlapping groups, need to communicate with one another and collaborate on communicating to and with the whole population.” Isn’t this the ‘mission’ (in some fashion) of Social Media Marketing? I can envision all the possibilities for Nonprofits with the use of effective SMM. And, the simplicity to developing community internally and externally within/outside the organization. I found the link to “good2gether is a search and social media Web service that connects people to causes…” (http://www.good2gether.com/ ) equally of interest and an indicator of what might work for many.
Good to know I’m not alone! Thanks all for the comments. I’ve yet to talk to a marketer about their business objectives and not find at least one way that these tools of two-way communications could be leveraged, either by them personally, by staff members or by a social media agency.
Those who say it’s a waste of time must be defining social media marketing very narrowly, like the one guy who said, “all it is is social bookmarking.”
Thanks for the comments~
~Jim
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I would also like to share a few points. I feel SMM is imporant not only to boost your business and traffics but also the clarity with one’s goal setting. One needs to set up any analytics program on the site to measure: unique visitors, page views, time spent on site, depth of visit and conversion etc.
if the page where people lands has got social elements (people can contribute into it, for example comments), monitor the number of comments you receive, you will then be able to see the unique visitors/comments relation.
These are the few points I come across though there are a lot more to explore and share.