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Social Media Marketing: Think marriage, not a one-night-stand

September 9, 2010 | 8 Comments

I hope I am not offending my fellow marketing professionals, but I have seen way too many folks trying to approach social media the same way we have approached traditional marketing channels.  While we all talk about building long-term meaningful relationships based on trust, many of us still approach social media as another form of a transactional broadcast medium.

More specifically, these are my top five favorite myths when it comes to social media:

  1. Look boss it’s free, just let me do it: While it’s true that most tools are (almost) free today, success in social media is hard and requires a sustained, long-term commitment to be successful.  It is not sufficient to ‘just set-up a twitter handle’, but requires a significant people commitment to nurture and build an audience that will be interested in listening to not only what you have to say but also actively participate; as I said in a previous post, content is king and content is not free.
  2. I can get from 0 to 60 in no time, just watch me: Wrong again, building an audience takes a considerable amount of time, and that nurturing phase requires a significant investment in time and resources.
  3. Look at me, I just got 10,000 followers/fans/friends: So what, who cares? I have seen numerous studies trying to assign a value to a Facebook fan with values ranging between $3-270.  The reality is unless you know what the business objectives are and set your social media metrics in tandem, measuring your reach is meaningless.
  4. The only way to succeed is to own a community/blog/fan page: We have been trained over many decades to ‘own’ stuff.  It was my brand, my marketing assets, my campaigns.  If we transfer this mindset to social media we are doomed to fail.  We need to start thinking that we need to participate in the conversations wherever they are occurring and learn to deal with the inherent fragmentation that comes with social media.
  5. Strategy, who needs a strategy? If it’s not clear by now that before you embark on any initiative you need to start with the business outcomes you are trying to influence and directly link the social media success metrics to those outcomes, perhaps you should re-read the previous four points.

Don’t get me wrong, I am by no means implying that I have all the answers and by dispelling these five myths we will succeed.  Experimentation is key and there will likely be (and should be) many missteps along the way.  All I am trying to say is that you will definitely fail unless you have internalized these points.

What do you think?  Does this resonate based on your own experiences?  I look forward to your feedback.

Marketing, Social Media, Strategy

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Philipp Nething says

    September 17, 2010 at 06:34

    True, true, true, true, true! Like the 5 points – and love your blog. Glad I found it.

    Reply
  2. Ted Sapountzis says

    September 17, 2010 at 20:42

    Thank you for your kind words Philipp

    Reply
  3. Mindset Marketing says

    January 25, 2011 at 21:34

    Thanks for a great post. very informative. I totally agree with you, having is the right mindset is most important of all. I Have already shared this post with a few of my friends and they loved it.
    Thanks.

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Social Media Marketing ROI: Looking For The Holy Grail? « Lead, Not Manage says:
    September 26, 2010 at 21:32

    […] I had the honor of participating in a panel discussing the impact of Social Media today.  Our lively discussion prompted me to write this post as a follow up to my last one. […]

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  2. Social Media Marketing: Are we outsourcing our brain? | Lead, Don't Manage says:
    March 10, 2011 at 15:26

    […] that these norms are carrying over to social media, which as I mentioned in an earlier post, is no longer a one-night-stand, but rather a marriage.  The core thesis of the 5 myths I had outlined in the post were centered around the fact that […]

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    May 8, 2011 at 23:07

    […] to win in Social media? Four ingredients for success 2011 May 8 by Ted Sapountzis I wrote this post Last September, aptly titled: Social Media Marketing: Think marriage, not a one-night-stand.  […]

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  4. Want to win in social media? Four ingredients for success « The Pegmeister~ says:
    May 16, 2011 at 15:25

    […] wrote this post last September, aptly titled: Social Media Marketing: Think marriage, not a one-night-stand.  […]

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  5. Philipp nething | Goldengatecons says:
    September 19, 2011 at 08:56

    […] Social Media Marketing is about relationships, not transactions … […]

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