Social Media: Advertising Panacea or Field of Dreams?

No doubt about it. Social Media is the new darling that has attracted the attention of marketers. But in our rush to court Social Media applications, one has to ask -- can FREE Social Media vehicles really live up to the hype? Is Social Media going to be the great advertising panacea for marketers, or is it just wishful thinking that "if you build it, they will come"?

In an article from Target Marketing magazine this summer, Social Media was evaluated from an "economics" perspective. Since one of the key attributes of Social Media is its price tag ("free"), Target Marketing examined the economics of "free", or what they called "freeconomics". Very simply, to implement a Social Media program one must evaluate "vendor costs" for traditional media against the "opportunity cost of time" incurred with Social Media.

So what is the "opportunity cost of time" for businesses to create and maintain an effective Social Media plan?

A recent webinar about creating and managing Social Media initiatives estimated that companies need to allocate 32 hours per Social Media site per month. If a company utilized the five most common Social Media sites, that means a company must allocate 160 hours of staff time per month! That is equal to one full time position!

During this recession, marketing staff have gotten smaller, not bigger. Attempting to create and update Social Media profiles, write content for blogs, regularly tweet and produce whitepapers or webinars on a regular basis with diminished staff resources does not sound like the recipie for success. Plus, most marketers are still struggling with the means to measure Social Media's effectiveness.

So, what is the lesson here? It is important to keep Social Media tactics in perspective. Remember that Social Media is A medium, not THE medium. Yes, organizations should utilize Social Media as part of an integrated media mix to brand and position themselves in the market; to engage their audiences in dialogue, and to improve their website search ratings. But organizations should decide which applications make the most sense for their needs, develop a strategic plan to implement and manage the activities, and only take on as much as your organization can do well.

For information on how DMC Advertising can help you get up to speed on Social Media, please click: www.dmcadvertising.com