* with some exceptions.
A great post from Jason Stoddard about the impact of traditional media coverage, with some very entertaining (and potentially controversial, in many circles) digressions on social media marketing, specifically:
If you’re an entertainment company, social marketing is the greatest thing since sliced cheese. It should absolutely be front and center in your plans. Every entertainment social media program we did produced 10-100x the results of an equivalent investment in conventional media
If you’re not an entertainment company, social marketing is really, really dumb—easily the biggest time-sink and resource-eater out there, with returns 1/10 to 1/100 of an equivalent investment in conventional media
And...
Sorry, guys. People are on Facebook to talk to friends. Not shills.
They’re watching YouTube for funny cat videos, not smooth-talking tours of your factory set to some hip music.
They’re on Twitter to get celebrity tweets.
Et cetera. If you want to talk to your prospects effectively:
Clearly communicate the unique benefits of your products on a good, easy-to-use website.
Have a memorable brand.
Provide fast responses to any inquiries.
Take care of customer service before it spreads to Facebook.
Make sure the press (online and off) know when you have something new and cool, but otherwise stay out of their face.
Invest carefully in measurable marketing vehicles such as Adwords, reinvest in successful vehicles and revise or discontinue underperforming ones.
Continue improving your product so someone doesn’t have a clear, unique benefit over you before you know it.
And that is that. Social media will take care of itself, at that point.
“But wait, does that mean we can pretty much ignore social media?” you ask.
To be blunt: yes.
This "ignore social media" advice is even more relevant if you are a business-to-business company—that is, selling products or services to businesses. Do not spend a single second on social media. Concentrate on the 7 points above. Don’t dismiss 1 and 2 because you’re B2B. And you’re done.
It's a great piece and worth a full read.
Via Marco Arment.