Every advertising professional that you speak to today, is trying to uncover something or the other about Social Media Marketing. For a while now, it has been touted as the ‘next big thing’ in marketing. People have praised it endlessly because of its ability to ‘engage’. It also seems to appear more non intrusive and at the same time, it has the ability to make the user create an action around a brand.

 

That said: Question – how many users want to create an action around a brand? My guess is – not too many.

 

The reply would often be: Well there are loads of brands that people have ‘engaged’ with.

 

Question 2: Accepted, but then would you say that if people have joined a ‘Ferrari Community/ Social Network/ Forum’ – it is because of the brilliant Social Marketing? Or is it because Ferrari has invested a good 50 years in creating a brand?  

 

You probably won’t say that its because of the brilliance of Social Media Marketing– and you can’t.

 

Engagement happens because of liking and liking happens because of synergy of though, a great feeling, a great experience, a great memory. It rarely happens because you send a ‘scrap’ on a social network. Creating ‘engagement’ of the above-mentioned kinds and synergizing that with all marketing is what social media agencies will have to do to really provide any real value. Doing that, is easier said than done.

 

Currently due to the pressures of the market, social media messengers are focussing on sending out their messages to a greater number of people. As a result of that they are sending out standardized messages to people who are a part of what appears to be a similar psychographic group. The net result is that Social Media Marketing is not becoming any different from direct marketing. It is only sending out the channel through a different communication.

 

How many mailers sent out by brands do you open?

 

The great thing about Social Media Marketing is that audiences with similar psychographics are bundled together – eg. They have joined a community on adventure so if the brand is a sports brand with an adventurous identity – it makes sense to send messages to all those members.

 

That’s where the glitch is. Sending a message is easy. Sending a purposeful message and utilizing that platform for something bigger than the message is extremely, extremely difficult. Also because sending a message is so easy, you have tons of tiny Social Media Shops sending out these standard messages at once (labour in our country is cheap); That, as stated above has 0 value. It’s bordering on spam. Few people are thinking of sending out innovative messages or having a purpose to the message. Even fewer people are thinking if that message has any value at all.

 

So essentially, because the barriers to entry are so low, and because segmentation is so easy, and because execution is so easy, there really isn’t too much incentive for anyone to think beyond the standard social media communities, personal messages/ scraps, pointless blog comments (you should see the amount of spam we filter in terms of comments). We are thus becoming an industry that is killing itself. In the next 3 months there will be cut throat price competition because noone will look at it as something that delivers value. Social Media Workers will be crudely looked at as ‘vendors’ and the one who delivers the highest numbers at the lowest possible price will be awarded the contract.

 

Once brands get this mindset – the industry is DEAD. Brands will not undertake social media marketing activities on a long term basis. They will jump agencies from project to project (because in their eyes Social Media Marketing will only be a commodity). So a brand manager will think that he is doing his job well by extracting value for the company but in the end fragmented social media marketing without the existence of a roadmap will do more harm than good.

 

Ironically, we are mostly in the business of branding. At some level social media agencies are brand stewards – they seem to be forgetting that. Further – they seem to have amnesia when the topic of personal branding comes into the picture.

 

It’s high time that Social Media Agencies started looking at themselves as Brand Consultants and beyond – even roughing it out for a few months or years before brands start seeing any value. The other concerns such as analytics, ROI, and beyond exist as well – I’ll deal with them at a later date.

 

Mind you, I believe Social Media Marketing works. It’s really difficult, but it WORKS. Just not the way I see people currently doing it.

 

PS. Im aware of the fact that there is much more to Social Media Marketing than the standard Outreach. Applications (branded), have showed minimal return. Web Products have a future but that too is out of the reach of many brands, or they are not sure if it is worth creating a product because they have the idea that Social Media Marketing is like magic. Too many marketeers do not want to give themselves time. Ironically, marketeers are not looking to build marketing into products. Plus the Internet is made up of passive consumers. Not everyone has a blog and i’m pretty sure that not many people have the time to create actions around brands.  

Bookmark this post to:

Related Posts

• Technological Innovation and Leadership – The Guide to Successful Innovations (The 8th of a Many Part Series)
• Twitter User Auctioning Off His Profile
• Rupee movement. What does it spell for the Indian tech sector?
• The Power of Viral Marketing – Why Marketing By Word of Mouth is Good for Your Business
• Authors Take Social Media Route For Online Book Promotions!