Most marketers: Social Media is cheap and cool but not very effective

Social Media's rapid adoption has been primarily because it is cheap and cool. Being effective? Not so much.

Blasphemy? Not really. We have all read the high profile Social Media success stories and know they deliver "the goods." But the majority of the Social Media use I see "on the street" is pretty basic stuff:

• Send out a press release, Tweet about it.
• Have a company event, put it up on a Facebook page.
• Come out with a new product, post it on your blog.
• Etc.

At this level of execution, Social Media is not the tip of the marketing spear, but just offering support to PR and other "exposure" functions. In cases like these, it is hard to isolate tangible results leadingna majority of marketers to doubt the effectiveness of their Social Media.

A recent study by Junta42 and MarketingProfs well documented this.

First, the good news: when close to 1,000 marketing directors were asked which content marketing tactics they now use, Social Media (less blogs) topped the list with 79% saying they are users:

But later the study came to a different finding: despite marketers using Social Media more than any other tactic, it is also the tactic they least believe to be effective (only 31% do). Also, more than any other tactic measured, 69% of respondents believe Social Media to be "less effective" or "ineffective." Ouch! Not good ratings for a medium that prides itself on being highly measurable. What is going on here?

Let's look at cost. While access to Facebook and Twitter (etc) are free, dedicating talent to get a Social Media program done right is not. As anyone reading this blog should know by now, good content is not cheap and a Social Media program is only as good as its content.

But marketers see this differently, Social Media might not be free, but deploying it can cost less than deploying any other tactic on the Junta42/Marketing Profs Study list.

And we cannot ignore the cool factor. I can't tell you how many companies have told me they deployed Social Media programs because their younger employees told them they had to do it.

The message for those of us advocating for a more engaged use of Social Media in business is simple: don't think because Social Media is everywhere that everyone thinks it is effective. Most marketers are still not convinced.

For now, Social Media is everywhere because it is cool and cheap. Someday, it might also become widely used, and used differently, because of its effectiveness. But if this study is to be believed, this time has not yet come.

Download the Junta42/Marketing Profs study

Comments

[Joe Pulizzi]

Thanks for the shout out Josh.

I think that one of the problems with leveraging social media is that most companies think it is cheap. Sure, tweeting or facebooking doesn't cost anything...but then again, no one will pay attention anyway.

The inherent investment in social media is the creation of compelling content that makes you interesting. That is where the cost is. Social media is part of the distribution and feedback of that content.

I think companies are just starting to get this. 2011 should be interesting indeed.

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The dominance of online social media is such that company’s can no longer afford to ignore them. Without question, Facebook still controls the market, but that does not overlook the importance of MySpace, Twitter, Digg, reddit, You Tube, Stumble Upon or Meetup. Each social media network offers businesses in different fields different advantages. Whereas Facebook is fast been adopted by all businesses as an integral part of their online promotional mix, others are more tailored.

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