It’s Marketing; It’s Social Media; It’s Social Media Marketing

Social Media Marketing

I’ve written before about who “owns” social media in any given organization (see: Who Owns Social Media? Ultimate Answer: The Opposites) During my decade at AOL (Community and Social Messaging), we worked in the Product dept., although viewing “product” as the home of social media may have been  unique to the situation, both in the company (one of the first online community hubs) and the time (mid ’90s — mid ’00s). At BusinessWeek, it was the digital dept and for sure, what better place for a digital tool like social media to live? But at Bloomberg LP it was the Communications dept and that certainly made sense and where I am now, KPMG LLP, it resides in marketing.

So, I can tell you from experience, there are arguments for social media being based in whichever department I (or perhaps, you) work in at the time. As stated in my prior post it the goal should be that social media live everywhere in a modern organization and so usually I try to stay departmental-agnostic. So I am always on the lookout for some function-based thought leadership piece that makes a good case for why social is a key tool for them.

That brings us to this article,’12 From ’12: The Ultimate List Of The Year’s Top Marketing Lessons‘ on Forbes written by Lisa Arthur (CMO of Aprimo), where she lists her key marketing developments from 2012:

It struck me that, without exception, what she is saying about marketing is also true about social media.

Social media is a transforming, disruptive, force that’s all about engagement. To do it well, you must be accountable and transparent. It’s certainly a strategy (with tactical tools) to use towards the achievement of your organization’s goals with more and more emphasis on mobile.

Showrooming (technically where people view a product in a brick and mortar store and then purchase it online for a better price) exists in that you are being compared to every one of your competitors  in the social space, where failure to excel will put you in a competitive disadvantage. Zombies (dead, outdated assets) live because technology rules in a space where 5 years ago may as well be a century ago if you do not keep up to date.

Too many organizations think social is a fad, or is easy, and so lack the expertise to do it correctly yet won’t hire someone (a social media professional) who does. Social by nature grows in strength at an accelerated pace as the networks expand. Social is evolving so it’s not too late to get in the game — like the ‘Nike” ad said, “Just do it.”  And, of course, social is nothing if not in a constant state of flux; agility is key to staying on top of it.

So here is the marketers challenge:

You need to understand that the effective use of social media is not that much different from marketing in general, but also realize that the differences are significant enough to warrant adding the expertise and technology to do it well. 

Related articles

• What Fuels Social Media Marketers? (covario.com)