A Mass Marketing Contrarian’s View of Keeping It Real

“Clueless Is No Excuse”

It has been reported recently that most executives have no idea how to measure the impact of social media and even digital marketing in driving business objectives.  New Media and Marketing presented an interesting Contrarian’s view of social media and digital marketing. According to New Media and Marketing:

In my 15 years as a marketer, I don’t think I have seen more BS and hype around a specific channel than I have seen for social media.   So called social media experts lead marketers to believe that they absolutely need to have a Facebook page or Twitter account.  When marketers sink resources into social media they then become desperate to show some kind of ROI to C suite executives.

4 Realities of Social Media 

1. According to Simplyzesty.com, Only 16% of people who are a fan of your brand see your brand feed posts on  Facebook.

2.  In-store influence is more important.  Nearly one-quarter of moms say that their brand decisions are heavily influenced by in-store circulars.

3. New research has found that consumers feel overwhelmed with information and usually want want less of it  This includes marketing messages. Brands that help consumers simplify the purchase journey have customers who are 86% more likely to purchase their products and 115% more likely to recommend their brand to others.

4. Most marketers feel that social media is providing an ROI but they don’t know how to measure it.   Executives who said their companies had established an extensive social media presence reported a return on investment that was more than four times that of companies with little or no social network engagement activity.  But how they are measuring social media and is it really just self justification for  social media spend? The Contrarian believes that:

  •  Most brands and marketers believe that social media is more important to their brands that it actually is.
  • Most are clueless about the resources needed to measure its impact and  most don’t even have a handle on any of their digital marketing.

Contrarian’s View

Analytics are important and require investment in resources. The Contrarian believes that marketers who buy into the notion that that social media is very important to their mix are going to pay a huge price in misallocated resources.

Snap! principle of the contrarian’s warning about social marketing:

Be aware that the return may be difficult to measure and may not always justify the investment