Comments on: Why Social Media Comes Last

By: Grant Spoon

Grant Spoon — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 21:05:55 +0000

Love it Shama, so few people tell it like it is which is why I respect your views. Here’s a thought-you can tell a million people you have free manure, but it’s still manure. you can tell 5 people about your free diamonds and you’ll have a million people in line.

By: Shama

Shama — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 18:40:15 +0000

Hi Michael,

Thank you for adding your insight! Much appreciated.

By: Shama

Shama — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 18:39:46 +0000

Alex -

Excellent points. I’d love to see what you find!

By: Alex Schleber

Alex Schleber — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 18:10:17 +0000

Smart take, Shama.

I agree that far too many people have been jumping on the SM bandwagon thinking or secretly hoping that this was going to be the way to avoid or fudge the hard testing of your offer against reality. Which really is a form of codependence in the making.

The main problems: If the majority of people say on Twitter are there with these ideas in mind, then it leads to progressive wearing out of the social and friendship concept. And I would argue that we’ve already seen that, people trust their online “friends” less, and engagement appears to be down.

I’ve been doing some informal studies of click-throughs which I will write up in the coming days, that shows that even the “big dogs”, people who for all apparent purposes are doing everything right, can have relatively low actual response.

And that those that have just been on a wild “follower fishing expedition” are seeing response rates often below 1/10 of 1%! Those that set up bot accounts can fall even lower, e.g. 5 real clicks on 50,000 followers.

Spring is here, it’s nice out, and it feels like a lot of people are suffering from Social Media fatigue. Especially Social Media Marketing fatigue…

By: Michael Wilson

Michael Wilson — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 17:47:55 +0000

Shama,
I agree 100%! It’s good to hear you describe the correct place for social marketing.

Social media marketing is very important and beneficial; it should be a part of an overall balanced business and marketing plan.

Social media is also so easy that it is tempting to start there; unfortunately, it can be so time-consuming that it is easy to never get past it and develop other marketing methods!

Michael Wilson