Social Media Marketing: the Holy Grail or the Emperor's New Clothes?
It's one of the biggest debates in marketing at the moment - is social media the key channel to invest valuable marketing funds into? It's certainly getting plenty of press coverage, with Twitter in particular often driving news coverage of major activities despite actual user engagement and activity significantly below what you would expect for such focus. However, the opportunities for more personalised communications, targeting (especially with programmatic) and most importantly a one-to-one relationship that traditional media simply doesn't offer means that it is enjoying a surge in popularity from marketing departments.
What about the IT channel? There has been a great debate on CRN recently, kicked off with an article (https://www.channelweb.co.uk/crn-uk/feature/2403165/is-email-marketing-dead) where in a post on the Official Microsoft Blog, Australian partner marketing manager Rob Evans said traditional techniques such as email are no longer fit for purpose. “We are seeing declining cut-through for many of the marketing techniques that we have used to effect over the years,” he said.
Inevitably, there has been a push back - and I would certainly argue the case that traditional methods (if email can now be placed in the category) are not dead. It's all about having a kitbag of tools, and PR, direct mail, events and online digital media all play an important role. It can depend on the campaign, the product, the target audience and even the time of the year.
At e92plus, we certainly believe that social media's time has come to play a key role though. Long term ROI is between email and PR, with reporting available to understand engagement but without the more direct action that email will often deliver.
Tying back to a previous post I made, it needs to be personal. Build it and they will come - but only if it's built for them. That's why at e92plus we have developed e92social, a social media marketing platform that enables our partners to engage with social media quickly, easily and effectively. It takes two minutes to sign up, and links social accounts so that everything is fully automated and users can enjoy the benefit of great content posted on their behalf. Alternatively, after registering they can choose to preview every post and then edit or approve as required - giving them complete control, and the ability to personalise everything but without hassle of having to write or source the content.
If you're interested, just register at www.e92social.com and let me know how you get on.
Delivering channel-first marketing services in cybersecurity
9 年Thanks for the comments. To be clear, it's not about social advertising or sponsoring - it's about providing curated content to our partners to distribute, that they can easily push out or personalise for their own audience or channel. That is a key part, as it provides the resources they need but without enforcing uniformity. I see social media, without being cliched, as about starting discussions - a bit like this! Good content or insight people can share, discuss and engage with. Email is much more about a direct action (getting in touch, registering for a webinar) and can even be about content - but 1-to-1, rather than a through a shared platform. Integration is the next step, so we can have everything together. We're working on a platform that can do that, but again we want to build flexibility so it isn't all or nothing and our partners can't use it how they want. We have huge diversity in the resellers we work with, so our marketing services need to be modular.
Go-To-Market and Revenue Leader | Named Top 100 B2B GTM Female Leader 2024 by SalesIntel | Voted Top 100 Customer Success Thought Leader 2024 & 2023 | Top 50 CS Thought Leader in North America 2024 & 2023.
9 年Social media, email marketing, and other methods can't be thought of as silos or that one method or platform is the be all and end all. The important question to ask is how does everything work together? It's about what part each plays in the overall strategy.
Charles T Sebesta
9 年Interesting
Married to Digital Marketing & FinTech, An Author who loves to write about Disruptive Innovations
9 年Interesting post
Director/Trainer at Secret Codex Ltd
9 年Anyone who thinks just 1 option from the marketing mix can solve their problems is a fool. Social media is one of many options used in conjunction with means of sales and promotion and it can help create rapport with customers and give excellent customer/market feedback. Advertising an unknown brand on Twitter or posting blogs on a Facebook Community page with no support and expecting that to generate heat or sales doesn't work. The era of do-it-yourself millionaire vloggers on YouTube is over. Finally it depends what you want people to do on social media. Want them to click, or browse a webpage or signup for a webinar is all good. Want them to buy a physical "thing" or go to an actual place for a conference - then prepare to be bitterly disappointed.