Social Media – Know where to draw the line!

Contemporaneous times and it seems that one can never over-emphasize the importance of social media. Reaching out to the intended consumer is the mantra and word of mouth marketing (BzzAgent), Twitter, Facebook, Orkut, Blogs, Forums and other platforms are all the handy tools that an online marketing executive looks to explore and ‘hopes’ for maximum benefits.

With the surging tide of social media nearly all are turning upto to social media – albeit they don’t have a clue of how to proceed with it. Clueless find someone who has a clue or someone who claims that he has the clue – The so called social media experts. Learn why you shouldn’t call yourself a social media expert here)

The very intriguing point about investing time and money in social media marketing is the obscurity of ROI – it is not easily computable like Pay per clicks or SEO. If you have 3673 fans on your facebook page or 39 blog comments and 237 diggs you still cannot decipher the actual implications of these numbers on your sales and revenue. [But - But new measuring tools like Radian 6 and ClearSaleing are starting to make things a little easier]

You cannot exactly estimate the time and money invested versus the return ratios in terms of social media marketing. And the very important fact of the matter is that the conversion rate of these numbers in actual revenue generation is ‘unpredictable’ and inconsistencies are inevitable.

What is the overarching goal of social media? Essentially it is a one-to-one interaction with potential or actual buyers. Social media is used to generate sales leads in the form of opt-in followers. It is therefore the goal of any social media effort to generate followers and it is the generation of these that is a measurable parameter of social media marketing goals. But statistics about the conversion of potential buyer to buyer is not clearly elucidated by social media marketing.

Knowledge Network survey claims that only 16%” are more likely to buy from companies that advertise on social sites. This is relatively on the lesser side considering the hype and attention that social media is hogging away from conventional marketing practices.

The essence is one, as a marketer, must know where to draw the line and use social media as an aid to traditional media – relying on social media along won’t do the business. You must go out, meet, discuss and exchange – Face-to-Face in real world.