Social Media Marketing Myths and Universal Truths

It's true: Social media marketing opportunities are viable additions to your marketing plans. But what is fact and what is fiction in this complicated world?

Social media marketing opportunities proved to be viable additions to existing online advertising strategies for many of the top brand marketers in 2007. But the seeming complexity of these opportunities and the variety of social networking sites and online communities available still are difficult hurdles for many marketers to clear.

Challenges such as structuring the appropriate campaign for target audiences, measuring engagement and results, and proving return on investment still remain for social media marketing. But many of these perceived challenges are, in fact, based on myths rather than real-life truths about the potential for success in social media marketing.

This article will take a closer look at exactly what social media is, as well as the myths and truths about how this relatively new medium can be leveraged for marketing success.

What is social media?
At its highest level, social media is defined as the online technologies and practices that people use to share opinions, insights, experiences and perspectives with each other. The focus of the interactions can be personal interest, consumer-oriented or business-to-business.

Marketers are adapting to social media in a number of ways. Tactics include transforming customers into fully vested brand champions by adding social media tools -- like blogs, discussion forums and wikis -- to their existing Web sites, as well as exploring existing online communities that can offer the ability to target audiences beyond existing customer bases.

The world of social media can be an extremely valuable tool in targeting prospects -- as many marketers have discovered. According to an October 2007 survey of 116 senior marketing professionals, San Mateo, Calif.-based digital marketing optimization solutions provider Coremetrics discovered that 78 percent of respondents view social media marketing as a way to gain a competitive edge. Yet, only 7.75 percent of total online marketing budgets are allocated to social networking sites. This disconnect between the recognized value of social media marketing and current budget allocation reflects the perceived risk and learning curve that marketers associate with advertising through any new medium. But a closer look at some of the myths and truths of social media marketing shows that many of these risks can be minimized through a deeper understanding of the opportunity at hand.

A closer look: myths vs. truths

Myth: Social media requires a radical change from the current online advertising approach.
Truth: Many of the same principles, and even the same advertising units, that apply to standard online marketing campaigns can be reapplied and repurposed for social media campaigns. Since users of these social media sites are generating significant volumes of content that is highly specific to their needs and interests, ad-targeting systems on the sites that ensure relevancy between advertising and user-generated content can supercharge online inventory for an advertiser.

• MORE ON
• SOCIAL MEDIA