One of the things I encounter frequently in speaking with marketers and that was recently highlighted in a recent study by eMarketer is that many perceive a huge benefit of Social Marketing to be that it is an inexpensive way to market. That blog post by Mashable! maintains:
With 51% of respondents also citing “low cost” as a benefit, I think the case can still be made that social media marketing is a viable medium for driving customer growth next year.
I disagree (respectfully) with that 51% in this survey and others, and think that approaching social marketing with a low-cost mentality can be hazardous not only to the political future of social marketing in your corporate boardroom, but also to your career health.
First, let me explain what my basis of comparison for “cheapness” is. I’m comparing social marketing to other marketing you can do online. In general I believe that for the impact it can have when implemented intelligently, most everything you can do online is cheaper than offline marketing. So compared to running a Superbowl ad, social marketing is a steal!
But is it really cheaper than search engine marketing? Building a website? Running banner ads? Delivering an email campaign? I don’t think so, and here are some reasons why.
The Viral Ker-plunk
The first case studies with regard to social marketing that got marketers excited were the examples of when a brand or product marketer produced a piece of clever campaign content that “went viral” on YouTube or on their own site. For a shoestring budget millions of impressions had been produced! Unfortunately, most of these bets don’t pan out, and when they do the actual business ROI is iffy because continued engagement doesn’t occur. While making sure that content is always enabled to “go viral” is smart, that happening can never be along the critical path of a marketing plan. And as the viral channels become more crowded with brand-sponsored content, a pure word-of-mouth success will be even rarer.
Free Technology!
Another reality of the social web that makes it look inexpensive is the prevalence of free or very cheap technology offerings. With the exception of some socio-analytical or graphic technologies that enable new kinds of interaction or analysis, social tools are just not very complex technologically. As a result, the technical side is becoming commoditized and is now as simple as logging on to Ning to set up your own free (ad-supported) social network. But as Jeremiah Owyang at Forrester recently pointed out, the bulk of the investment in social marketing programs has to be in managing the program to success – in services, not technology. And services can be expensive, especially expert services in a very nascent field.
Joining Up
So why not just join a social network? Well, a lot of VCs still have money in play that makes that technology and even more importantly network access free . . . for now. Marketers can participate in Facebook and Twitter, generating some traction with consumers and gaining fans and followers without investing too heavily. But is this a long-term strategy? Eventually those companies will have to monetize their networks for their investors, and in that environment corporate participants will be attractive to fees. Even if those fees aren’t exorbitant, the marketing ROI potential within environments focused on person-to-person interaction and not brand-to-person interaction from a consumer-perception perspective will always be limited.
Just Another Notch on the Go-Live Calendar
A final factor that contributes to an illusion of cheapness is the set-up compared to other brand websites. Designing a community that is based on pre-existing, hosted technologies and getting it “live” can be easy and quick, particularly in comparison to a corporate website that includes heavy content development and interactive design. There are two gotchas for marketers who approach community as they would any other website.
The first trap is the level of investment in content and programming. Successful communities demand a unique, valuable, continuous contribution by the brand in order to succeed sustainably – and may demand the same or more content investment than a company’s corporate or product websites – not less.
The second trap is the level of post-launch effort. I touched on this earlier, but launching community is a lot like childbirth, in that go-live is just the beginning of the commitment. Constant management and adaptation is necessary, feed and caring is critical. We’ve found internally that even in communities where no significant function is added to the site after go-live, 50-70% of the overall annual cost is in its management. If you underestimate this burden, giving a community to your customers and but then having to take it away from them, they will resent it.
If You Pay, It Will Pay to Go Social
So it’s comparatively expensive in terms of online strategies. But the power of opening up your brand, investing in content and programming that people care about, of hosting and participating in relevant conversations, is real. When appropriately implemented by experienced folks, the engagement it can produce and the marketing ROIs possible set new standards for marketing effectiveness. However, the bar for minimum successful investment is not as low as many think.
Photo Credit: Uploaded by The Morning Toast
Filed under: Community, ROI and Marketing Measurement, Social Marketing Tagged: | budgeting, ROI, technology, Viral Marketing
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I’m not sure I like the term ‘cheap’. Perhaps another way of saying it may be, “With a proven strategy and measurable results, Social Media marketing can be much more affordable than alternative approaches”. It is true that it can be.
One example is corporate blogging. Adding the human and technical resources, we have clients that are getting 50% to upwards of 1000% of the return that they are getting on their PPC and banner advertising. That is a much better deal – but it requires measuring results and adjusting accordingly.
The problem with social media is that there’s so much noise. It’s difficult to trace out a strategy and most companies are floundering in it. Luckily, there are companies out there that can help, though!
@Douglas, thanks for your comment and for sharing some of the results your team is seeing. I completely agree with your point about the returns – not only are they extremely compelling but also more measurable than other strategies!
The other things you mentioned, in terms of the need to measure and adjust as well as develop a strategy to cut through the noise – great points, and all the more reason to make sure that marketers approach social with enough internal buy-in (and budget) to do it right. I appreciate you taking the time to add to conversation.
Great article Doug. We build a lot of the technology behind social media and marketing campaigns but a lot of our clients underestimate the amount of “care and feeding” that is required ongoing post launch. I will pass this article along to the next one that thinks all you need to do is “build it and they will come”…