Social Media's Role in a Successful Marketing Program

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Every time I attend a social media presentation I feel compelled to clarify my position. I’ve written several posts disparaging social media. I’ve also written a few in favor of social media.

Social Media Experts are Like My Chiropractor
The Truth Behind Social Media Enthusiasts
If I had 100K – My Response

I’m sure there will be more of both kinds in the future.

Let me just say that I am not against social media per se. I spend way too much time blogging and on-sites like LinkedIn for an anti-social media stance to ring true. And, in my Back to Basics Marketing workshop I spend a significant amount of time on strategies for testing social media and measuring the results.

Back to Basics is NOT about going back to traditional methods of marketing like physical direct mail pieces and trade shows. (Believe me, I’d die happy if I never had to spend another minute in a booth!)

There are three very simple principles for building a successful marketing plan in Back to Basics Marketing:

1. Stop doing what no longer works. A lot of companies I know will spend thousands of dollars on programs that haven’t brought in a dimes worth of business in over ten years.

2. Do more of what does work. If you’re having success with email marketing, how can you expand on that?

3. Test, test, test.

The final one is important because that’s where social media comes in. Social media is rapidly maturing but it’s new enough that most marketers don’t have a track record of building successful social media marketing programs. By “successful” I mean ones that keep the pipeline full of qualified opportunities. Therefore, social media generally falls under the 3rd priority.

The order of these three principles is deliberate. Most of us don’t have unlimited budgets so we have to stop doing what doesn’t work before we can do more of what does. Doing more of what does work has to be before testing because you need to be generating some business in order to stay in business – or keep your job. Testing is third because, whether it’s social media or something more traditional like a new telemarketing program, you don’t know what’s going to work yet. You don’t build a consistent lead generation program by starting with step 3.

There is a fourth very important principle and that is to make every marketing dollar count by building a nurturing program, but more on that in a future post.

All the best!

Melissa