Social Media Marketing: Evolution or Revolution?

This has been happening more and more lately. People are claiming that social media is going to replace everything we've done with marketing in the past. I beg to differ. First of all, marketing is about more than promotions. As every marketing practitioner knows, it also involves the other "P's" -- product development, pricing and distribution. You could say that social media is having an affect on these in terms of business models either being based on social media or incorporating the tools. An interesting one that comes to mind is Camera Renter.

The fundamentals of marketing strategy are the same too. You still need to understand your target audience, niche, value proposition, competitive position, etc. That being said, social media's biggest impact is being felt on how we communicate about a business. That fourth "P" is usually explained by what is known as the promotional mix, which includes: advertising, PR, personal selling and sales promotions. Just because social media has come along doesn't mean these other elements are going to disappear. The trick is in figuring out where social media fits in an overall marketing strategy, and then where it belongs within the promotional mix.

At a party last night, I really got into it. The person I was conversing with was basically saying that social media will replace other media. Now I'm not saying that social media isn't a game changer. But as a professor of mine in grad school said, "Don't throw out the baby with the bath water." In other words, how we allocate our marketing resources (both time and money) may shift, but it doesn't mean advertising in print or on TV is going away for example. It's still about getting in front of a target audience in the most efficient way possible. There are many reasons why ads are going to work a lot faster than doing the social thing.

These shifts in allocation are not a new idea. Think about the changes that happened when TV was introduced or when the Web came on the scene. They didn't replace print media. Some advertising dollars just moved to where the eyeballs were, but not all of them.

Finally, the Web has always been a place for community and socialization. The fact that the tools have made it so much easier to use means more people are flocking to it. And people are using them to supplement how they have found information in the past. For example, people are using Yelp to check out new restaurants. That doesn't mean they're ignoring magazine articles though. And they're probably still asking their friends for recommendations (and not necessarily via Facebook). So yes, there have been some fundamental changes in the way people behave, and therefore the way we market, but that doesn't mean we should lose the baby.

Comments

[Robbin]

As an update, here's a great infographic from Fast Company (by way of Outsell) that shows how ad spending for all media has changed since last year. Search engine advertising showed the biggest gains. Surprisingly, mobile and wireless showed the biggest losses.