Social Media Marketing Reality Check

Posted by Jennifer Kindred on Jul 8th, 2009 | Comments

By: Jennifer Kindred

For those interested in social media marketing…its here and growing fast.  However, a majority of society has not opted into online socialization, so it is understandably difficult for those people to get why social media marketing would be effective.  I often get questions about social media such as, “why would someone want to know what I am doing all day?” or “Twitter people are crazy status updaters…who cares?”  This blog entry will attempt to demonstrate some truths about social media and social media marketing.

What is it about blogging that makes people want to blog?  The writing aspect, putting your ideas out onto the web, or receiving responses from others who read your blog?  For me its a combination of all three (although not too much into the writing part), but what I really enjoy is getting responses and comments about my blog.  I suspect that most people get a happy, excited feeling when someone takes the time to read and comment on their writings…particularly if the comments are positive.

This is not a shameless shout out for people to read and comment on my blogs but an example of social web interaction.  As demonstrated above its not about just flinging information out onto the social web…people update their status, post information and content so that others will respond!

A survey last month, highlighted today in eMarketer and reported by Adam Ostrow at Mashable outlines the benefits that marketing executives cite as reasons to embrace the medium (see chart).  Customer engagement ranks highest at 85.4% of respondents citing it as a benefit of using social media marketing.   Social media engagement is a simple and effective way to engage with consumers and fans of  you or your product.  Activating WOM assists clients in developing strategies to maximize client’s social media presence and transmit social media momentum to offline marketing campaigns.  One of my recent blogs discusses creative ways that companies have maximized their social media marketing strategies offline.

So what does all of this mean?  What is the real world impact of social media marketing?  Is it really being used by companies and is this the time to start developing strategy?  Yes, yes, and yes!  Forrester Research just came out with their Interactive Marketing Forecast for the next five years, and estimates that social media marketing will grow at an annual rate of 34%.  This is faster than any other form of online marketing and double the average growth rate of 17% for all online mediums.  Forrester estimates that $716 million will be spent on the medium this year, growing to $3.1 billion in 2014. At that point, social media will be a bigger marketing channel than both email and mobile.

If you are a company interested in social media marketing but don’t see where in your budget it fits, here are a couple of ways to think about making a splash in the social media world:

1. What percentage of my marketing budget do I currently spend on online advertising?
2. How much of that budget am I willing to divert to a social media marketing campaign?
3. What kind of social media marketing campaign do I want to execute and for how long?
4. What consumer engagement goals do I want to achieve with my social media marketing campaign?

These questions may require that your company consult a firm, such as Activating WOM to aid in development and execution of a social media marketing strategy.  Your firm may already have an idea of what it would like to achieve through its social media marketing strategy but may not be knowledgeable enough on all of the tools to successfully achieve its goals.  Again, consulting firms such as Activating WOM is oftentimes necessary to realize the full potential  of social media; similar to engaging traditional media, social media is its own animal with hundreds of methods, tools, and communities to interact with and use.

If you are reading this blog and are thinking about how social media fits into you marketing campaigns, give us a call or leave a comment.  As I have written before, social media is here…communities are built…when are you going to decide to engage?