The seven dumbest sins of social media
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Read Marketing Week editor Mark Choueke’s response to Ritson here
It’s relatively low cost
Not really. First it’s amazing what brands are now paying many of the newly created social media agencies. And even when the costs are relatively low, most brands aren’t comparing the costs of engaging in social media with the opportunity cost of spending that money elsewhere on less cool media options. If you have opted for a social media budget that is going to be allocated exclusively on Twitter and Facebook, you are not budgeting or planning your marketing properly.
Yes, but look at the ROI you get
You are almost certainly not able to prove the return on your investment in social media. That’s not my view, that’s the opinion of many social media experts.
Most marketers now have first-hand experience of sitting through an impressive presentation on a brand’s new Twitter or Facebook strategy only for it to end prematurely with pretty pictures and some audience data but no actual evidence of how this actually drives business fundamentals. Too many marketers have forgotten that if you cannot demonstrate ROI you should not be committing your organisation’s money to it. To do so makes you incompetent at best and potentially liable to accusations of malpractice at worst.
Social media is about more than ROI - it’s about conversations/dialogue/community*
Wrong! It’s about making money for your company. Last week, Tesco’s new group digital marketing officer Matt Atkinson announced he wants digital marketing to “enrich and add value to the customer journey”. What he should have said is how he can use it to sell more tea bags and panty liners.
As Pepsi’s recent disastrous results have demonstrated, when you forget you are in the business of selling cans of pop and start spending your cash on building communities and supporting causes you get crushed by your red and white competition.
*Delete as appropriate
What about all the successful case studies of social media impact?
First off let’s not confuse the incredible impact that social media is having for interpersonal and celebrity communications. But when you look at the evidence of social media success with brands alone, the case studies start to dwindle. There are still some impressive examples, such as Expedia, but as Columbia University’s Duncan Watts points out: “There is an enormous tendency for marketers to only notice successful case studies of social media and forget the huge number that fail completely.”
Social media is a new platform that changes all the old rules
Oh no it isn’t. It’s certainly an interesting new option for a small number of brands, but it’s been hugely oversold. And when the facts don’t stand up to examination, its exponents have created new arguments based on nonsensical facts.
To demonstrate this point, take a look at Barry Bridge’s impassioned response at the bottom of last week’s Marketing Week article on social media’s lack of ROI in which he introduces an entirely new form of ROI called “reverse ROI”. Absolute and total nonsense.
You are missing the role of social media as a source of consumer insight
Again total bollocks. Would you trust a research method that excluded 90% of the population? I’d say that was entirely unreliable data and yet that is the proportion who don’t use Twitter in the UK. Maybe you can use social media for some half-decent qualitative insights into a small minority of the market but you can get these insights without actually engaging in social media yourself. Three focus groups would be cheaper and more insightful.
If it’s so pointless, why are so many big brands doing it?
Most brands do social media because most other brands are doing it and, as we know, anything new and cool is usually irresistible to marketing managers under 40 (who are naive) and over 40 (who are paranoid at looking out of touch).
The problem also stems from the media who cover the launch of new apps and social media campaigns like they are life changing moments in marketing strategy. But then don’t cover the entirely piss-poor results that 95% of them achieve. Next week’s column will illustrate the point by looking at the five most piss-poor social media campaigns.
Really. I mean it.
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Readers' comments (32)
JL Pagano | Wed, 27 Jul 2011 12:42 pm
Put really simply, Social media world = creative, artistic. Business world = anything but. Very hard for the twain to meet. If you insist on looking at everything directly as a means to turn a quick buck, you won't see much in social media. Does that mean social media is therefore useless? Debate for another day methinks.
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James Mayes | Wed, 27 Jul 2011 1:18 pm
Whilst you're doing a great job of pointing out some classic errors, you're also misleading readers in support of your own argument. To suggest listening to social media means basically the audience of Twitter is disingenuous at best.
You know better than most reading this the sheer range of social sites available to monitor, with both free and enterprise grade tools available. To illustrate, I'd ask why you're talking about listening to Twitter, when for most consumer brands, Facebook is where their audience is statistically more likely to be found (c.75% of the UK's working population...).
B minus, could do better.
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Keith Trivitt | Wed, 27 Jul 2011 2:00 pm
Mark – You certainly make some valid points here, and I applaud you for calling BS on many of the overly optimistic and unfounded claims of social media “gurus” and self-proclaimed experts. However, as I wrote in response to Mark Choueke’s leader column, I worry about going too far to the other side and having marketers think that social media is so over-leveraged as to be worthless.
Clearly, that isn’t the case.
The reality is that social media is but one of many tools and communications channels marketers can and should utilize. The counterpoint of that reality, however, is that too many believe that social media can be a replacement for everything in a marketer's toolkit and make traditional forms of marcomms obsolete.
The idea of some that a brand’s entire Web presence should be on Facebook is ludicrous (even more so for those who proclaim that the only e-commerce platform a brand needs is a Facebook page). No smart marketer, nor business executive, would ever put all of their assets into one traditional market, given the volatility of business. So why should we think this overly optimistic idea is viable?
Just like almost anything in life, moderation is key. Marketers who don’t pay heed to this often make a big splash that results in an equally big fall.
Keith Trivitt
Associate Director of Public Relations
Public Relations Society of America
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Eb Banful | Wed, 27 Jul 2011 2:03 pm
Another interesting Article Mark,
For me Social Media is mainly about understanding brands,the environment they operate in and the psychology of consumption in the 21st Century,understanding these is as important as understanding the technology.
To quote Chris Kirubi, Chairman of Coca Cola Nairobi:
“You don’t need a social media strategy – You need a brand strategy that leverages social media. Don’t get off the brand strategy just because there’s a new communication channel; that’s how you lose the plot as a brand. Technology is the tail, not the dog.”
Too many focus on the media bit, i.e: the channels available and the technology bit, far too many forget the "social" bit which should be people. The bit about how people belong to communities, how people behave and how people believe in brands.
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mike fletcher | Wed, 27 Jul 2011 2:49 pm
A voice of sanity, reality and common sense for clients that get so easily caught up in channels that are new, bright, shiny - and the solution to all their marketing woes.
How do you know your marketing's working? As the rappers say... 'It's all about the Benjamins baby'.
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Amanda Greenwood | Wed, 27 Jul 2011 5:10 pm
I generally agree with this, social media (two words I don't like now!) should be part of a mix but there is too much emphasis these days.
Where companies can use social media to effect is when there is a crisis or problem, this is more about a point of contact but can nevertheless improve the image of a brand. So long as the company is reading and responding to its followers anyway.
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Andrew Griffiths | Thu, 28 Jul 2011 2:19 am
Having been through these arguments for 30 years, on every medium from newspapers to the internet, my advice is - don't blame the medium, blame the message. If you can't engage because your message is wrong, the medium won't work. Simple as that.
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ashley goodall | Thu, 28 Jul 2011 9:47 am
Mark, you are invariably right, but it depends what you use social media for. Perhaps you've overlooked the qualitative and personal aspects of social media,and the opportunity to drive awareness.For example, I use twitter for researching what's up- including your article here. And, linking up social media can drive more traffic to your website, which may create higher engagement, awareness and loyalty among your audiences- and even the occaisional commercial return.Some use SM for recruitment( I do, and have saved on fees and advertising) and I have even acquired a client through twitter.So, while it's a bit of an emergent dark art, SM will become more measureable, and we may find it offers us a broader qualitative return that compliments the usual weaponry.
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Chris Glennie | Thu, 28 Jul 2011 9:51 am
Always thought-provoking (the minimum requirement for a columnist), but on social media mostly wrong because you take a much too narrow view. You concentrate on big brands, and nearly always consumer ones at that. And you look at too few of the networks. In my world - basically, consultancy - the power of social media to grow individual networks and win business is potentially phenomenal - we have lots of examples of business being won both directly from contacts made via social networks and by the online world acting as a validater of the face-to-face one. To that extent, it works like a constant online networking event without the embarrassment of walking into a room full of people you don't know.
For me as 'brand owner', I can link our online and offline activity with theirs much more effectively than I could have without them (the networks). Individuals are therefore backed by the brand, and the brand by the individual, in ways much more cumbersome to achieve purely offline.
It's never a question of social media replacing the 'real world', but not engaging, and not learning what works would be a bit like dismissing having a company website circa 1995. Where did you stand then??
Agree with the B+. These were easy targets. You need to get more subtle at this social media analysis or you will start to date...
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Nigel Sarbutts | Thu, 28 Jul 2011 10:46 am
Some good points that are lost in pursuing a false argument of comparing social media with other types of marketing communications.
You might as well try to prove that your investment in your phone system is more/less effective than your investment in advertising.
The fact that most social media is currently in the marketing silo is not proof that it is another form of marketing communications.
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