I was visiting one of the online forums that I like to check out occassionally  and found a link to a very interesting article on marketing through Social Media that was published by Business Week.  The article “Debunking Six Social Media Myths” made some great points about using social media, but OY! The prices they quoted nearly made me fall out of my chair.

For those who are not plugged in to their computer 24/7 like yours truly the marketing geek here…social media consists of those sites you’ve likely heard about and perhaps even used on a personal level. We’re talking about your Facebook, YouTube,  Twitter and so on.

Okay, yeah – if you’re not techno-saavy (and have no interest in being) then you are going to have to hire some help getting your small business cozied up in these virtual communities.  It’s not going to cost you $50,000 though.

Obviously, these prices are skewed towards large companies who need massive media blitzes to move tons of product.  You’d likely get a much different picture of the pricing scheme if you were to read a similar article in a magazine geared for small business.  As a small business, you don’t need a massive campaign to set the world on fire – a simple presence and a plan for consistently communicating with your target market through these new-fangled systems is really all you need.

In Myth 2, the author claims that only a handful of social media consultants actually exist.  Again, that may be true if you’re a huge corporation taking on the world. In small business, you don’t need to be the big dog of the ‘net – you just need to be ahead of your competition and in front of the eyeballs of your target market.

For the most part I did agree with Myths 3-6.

3 – It’s not going to happen overnight. (If you want overnight results – you’ll need to put some significant dollars into a high impact short term radio campaign with a direct response commercial)

4 – It’s unlikely that you’ll find someone in-house with the skills and experience to manage your social marketing campaign. Though if you have a small business with a young, go getter on staff they could certainly be put in charge of implementation after you’ve had a pro help you choose the right tools and set up your profiles.

5 – Duh! “If you build it, they will come” was a classic line on the movie screen, but it has always failed to deliver in real life.  It takes work to be noticed.

6. Obviously there are ways to measure your social marketing efforts. The ways they listed are all fine and good, but lets face it…when your money is on the line, you don’t want numbers on a page – you want the cash register to ring. So while measurement is important and you should find someone who is capable of keeping track of that stuff so you can tweak and test different tactics and promotion, make sure you’re measuring the results that matter for the best gauge of how it’s working for your business.

There are two things that I thought should have been included in the article.

1. The need for consistency in your social marketing efforts. You can’t go hard for three months and then drop it all like a hot potato if you expect to acheive continued results. Fame is fleeting in the digital world. If you aren’t making an effort to keep your digital connections active, you’ll soon be forgotten and left behind as your market moves on…

2. Make sure whoever you hire keeps as up to date on online trends as possible. A blink and a half ago,  Twitter didn’t exist (It launched in March of ’06) now it’s all over the mainstream media. You’ll want to hire someone who’s well versed in what is going on, and what’s coming around the corner. That’s not to say you need to jump on every new tactic as soon as it is out of the gates (there are some things that have looked like the next big thing that bombed!) but that you want a fairly early adapter on your side, not one who waddles in after the party is over.

Should you need a clearer idea on what social marketing would look like for your small business, give PK Marketing Solutions a call.