Why the dream of social media marketing is over

Although according to MarketingVOX over 80% of the population online uses social media in some form, we still wonder if social media marketing is really worth the effort?
Is it effective ?
Can any business leverage it?

Whatever media marketing gurus have told us, whatever the hype was: how big is really the impact and the effect on business?

The observations: bots and content duplication

- There are more bots scanning social media than people are reading it
- There are more bots publishing content than people posting posts or commenting
- Limited participation: only a minority (<1%) of all people on social websites generate content
- Most people don't create content but they republish content: just duplication
- Viral success is minimal and unpredictable for every brand large or small.

The questionable effectiveness

The portrayed image of low budget social media marketing campaigns has not become reality in most cases.
Instead it are expensive operations.
Although the platforms and communication channels of social media are free, the social media marketing campaigns are not cheap initiatives:
- It costs time and creativity to have any effect in this type of marketing.
- Due to the amount of possible channels and platforms available where messages can be posted and conversations can emerge the costs is high.

Can you measure the effectiveness of your investments in time and money in social media marketing ?
Probably not.
The relation between efforts and results are almost impossible to track and to prove.

So how can you explain the costs related to social media marketing to your management or Board Of Directors ?
Not.

The lack of capability measuring, proving the effectiveness and Return On Investment (ROI) of social media marketing leads to a not sustainable operation in a business environment.

The uncertainty and risks of social media marketing

Businesses prefer to have certainty and want to remove most or all risks.
The flow businesses prefer is: 1) order 2) pay 3) deliver a certain outcome 4) calculate the return.
Social media marketing cannot be ordered and the outcome is completely uncertain.

Social media marketing comes with uncertainty and risks involved:
- Businesses can spend large amounts of money on a social marketing campaign and still one of their competitors with a minimal budget gets rewarded more by the consumers or buyers.

- Businesses can invest a lot of time and money and one simple event can wipe out all these efforts.

- Businesses can try to build tribes over many years and one person with one issue or one event can kill the tribe in a very short amount of time.

Coexistence of different types of marketing

- Social media marketing is over and it appears not to be the Holy Grail.
- Neither is the traditional interruption advertising.
- Content marketing has its’ benefits too.
Therefor we should compare social media, interruption and content marketing for their cost, durability and effectiveness.

The future is probably in the coexistence of these 3 types (or even more types) of marketing.

Let us know if you know another type of marketing that would be complementary to social media, interruption and content marketing.