After having spent some time with a young gun entrepreneur half his age who specializes in social media marketing, one of the local marketing pros of a similar age whom I've known casually for quite some time asked me in an email today what my take is on "this whacky social media thing" as it relates to search engine optimization and lead generation. Here is my reply to him:
Social media is just another form of gaining visibility in front of an audience so they can determine if they like the way you think. If used properly, it can certainly be effective, but the time required is offset by the lack of time for other traditional marketing, which still works.
I know several social media “experts,” but I do not fully-understand how they bring real long-term ROI to their clients for the specdialized work they do. I assume they set up social networking accounts and sites and train the old folks how to use the technology,but then they leave it up to the client to do take on the additional responsibility to make it work. I hear some of them bill quite a bit each month, so more power to them.
We basically do the same thing, but we provide the services to make somewhat more-established tools work effectively. We apply social networking tools and tactics for our clients as needed (solo blogs, corporate blogware, ghost blogging, message board forums) but I can’t say that I have used many other platforms because I have yet to have a call for them from our more-traditional client base. Perhaps that’s my mistake, because I also can’t say they don’t work - and Twitter seems to be the next big thing despite or because of the fact that it can be used in many different ways and it is a very simple application.
In the end, it is all marketing, so we definitely need to keep up on it and use it despite our generation gap. Great branding and web technology combined seem to be the driving forces of successful marketing as we move forward in the Google Economy. As you know, my head has been buried in the SEO sand for about seven years, so I will use my blog as part of my social networking coming out party, and then continue the celebration with other tools soons.
Social media is just another form of gaining visibility in front of an audience so they can determine if they like the way you think. If used properly, it can certainly be effective, but the time required is offset by the lack of time for other traditional marketing, which still works.
I know several social media “experts,” but I do not fully-understand how they bring real long-term ROI to their clients for the specdialized work they do. I assume they set up social networking accounts and sites and train the old folks how to use the technology,but then they leave it up to the client to do take on the additional responsibility to make it work. I hear some of them bill quite a bit each month, so more power to them.
We basically do the same thing, but we provide the services to make somewhat more-established tools work effectively. We apply social networking tools and tactics for our clients as needed (solo blogs, corporate blogware, ghost blogging, message board forums) but I can’t say that I have used many other platforms because I have yet to have a call for them from our more-traditional client base. Perhaps that’s my mistake, because I also can’t say they don’t work - and Twitter seems to be the next big thing despite or because of the fact that it can be used in many different ways and it is a very simple application.
In the end, it is all marketing, so we definitely need to keep up on it and use it despite our generation gap. Great branding and web technology combined seem to be the driving forces of successful marketing as we move forward in the Google Economy. As you know, my head has been buried in the SEO sand for about seven years, so I will use my blog as part of my social networking coming out party, and then continue the celebration with other tools soons.
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