You know the fun’s over for any media channel when analysts start issuing reports about it, which is why Forrester’s new report – titled “Social media Playtime Is Over” – offers a distressingly adult perspective on social media (You can buy one for $750, refundable if you’re “not completely satisfied”).
Social media promises much, but lest we forget, the channels themselves are proving hard to monetize, and while some businesses are generating traffic and connecting with customers, the real ROI is harder to judge.
Some advocate a full-blown dive into social media, including Advertising Age columnist B.L. Ochman. She suggests corporations won’t make any headway in social media until they start investing in it – moving beyond experimentation into the realm of serious marketing:
Three-quarters of those surveyed who knew their budgets said they allowed for $100,000 or less for social media tools over a 12-month period, according to the report, written by Forrester analyst Jeremiah K. Owyang. And they are not integrating social media into their overall marketing strategy. Instead, they are “experimenting” with isolated tactics and hoping that they will take the place of long-term strategy.Furthermore, Owyang notes, social media is more of an after-thought than a marketing line item. “45-percent of marketers say their social budgets are determined as needed and 23-percent say they scrape together funds from wherever they can find them.”
I’m not going to deny the utility nor the promise of social networks, but corporations are experimenting for a variety of reasons, one of which is this: all social media isn’t the same, and the verdict isn’t wholly in on which will perform best – especially if you’re not a Web 2.0 company selling a Web 2.0 product.
And some in the marketing department may not have forgotten Second Life – a prior “must-invest-in-heavily” social media virtual reality that ate online marketing budgets for lunch.
I’m hardly a social media Luddite: I’m advising a couple clients to dive into selected social media, though not at the expense of other media channels with proven ROI (like email, integrated blogs, etc). In that sense, it’s possible I could be accused of only “experimenting” with social media, but then, what’s wrong with that?
Did fully formed email programs spring from the earth in the first months after email became widely available?
Every media channel – regardless of buzz or the market cap of the technology provider – should undergo the same scrutiny:
- How does this further our business goals?
- How do we measure the results?
- Does our target audience (or existing customer base) use this channel?
- Do our customers want us to communicate this way?
- Do we have the internal capacity to fill this channel with content?
- What will we have to cut to make budget for this new channel?
These are not always easy questions to answer, especially for smaller businesses.
It’s clear that social media are here to stay, and that they provide powerful engagement opportunities for the right businesses. But should companies commit hundreds of thousands without some hope of a result?
The use of social media channels is being
accelerated by the recession, and those companies that “experimented” with the
media will have their answers in time for the recovery.
Stay engaged, Tom Chandler.