Social Media is NOT the Next Marketing "Wonder Drug"
3 Side Effects You Need to Know About NOW.
From what you read these days, one could easily believe that social media is the newest wonder drug — able to cure every advertising, marketing, customer service, and market research ill with ease.
While social media does bring some very unique and, if used properly, valuable opportunities to the table, it’s not about to make marketing as we know it obsolete.
In truth, social media also has some serious issues that every business needs to be aware of before eliminating other proven marketing strategies from their budget.
Side Effect #2: The Social Media Hangover: One way or another, you're going to pay for it.
Let's be honest... One of the main reasons that social media is experiencing such an immense buzz is the notion that you can get all sorts of marketing results for FREE!
Suddenly, businesses everywhere are drooling over the possibility of savings thousands of dollars by replacing more traditional marketing mediums, like billboards, TV or print, with free social media.
If you're one of these business, here's your wake-up call... Social media is NOT free.
Sure, you'll pay nothing to open a Twitter or Facebook account. But, establishing a presence, building an audience, and developing relationships with that audience is going to take some serious time. And, time IS money.
How much time? Social media gurus agree that you must dedicate 2 hours per day (10 hours per week) at a minimum – but you'll need to spend even more time if you want to succeed at generating any sort of buzz.
Now, do the math. How much do you make per hour?
An hour of time for the professional making $40,000 per year is worth $20. This can add up to be quite a chunk of change. 10 hours per week is worth $200 with 3 months of social media marketing time being the equivalent of about $2,600.
With these real costs in mind, you can need to start demanding that your social media efforts achieve results at least equal to other similarly priced marketing efforts. After all, a business that expects to last any length of time can not afford to throw money around willy nilly - no matter the form of currency.
Side Effect #1: "The Social Media Overdose - There’s only so much any one person can take?"
Side Effect #3: "The Placebo Effect - Did Social Media Even Work?"