Web Design, Digital & Social Media Marketing in Singapore

Is social media a cheaper way to market your products and services?

// May 25th, 2010 // Social Media Marketing

Since the time when social media marketing gained the attention of marketeers, it has always been perceived that social media marketing is free. You don’t need to pay Wordpress, facebook, flickr, youtube and linkedin (even though some of them have paid service) to get on the social media bandwagon. And again, viral is perceived as free since it is the users that is sharing, retweeting & forwarding content to their network for you, without asking you to pay them!

The truth is the tools are often free but the labour required to set up, manage and maintain the individual outlets are not. Social media marketing basically reallocates some of your budget for paid media to paid labour. Realistically, companies that are embracing the social web need to know it is not a short-term, tactical campaign. The true form of social media marketing is to engage, influence and eventually build trust and relationships to create brand loyalty. Having said that, the manpower costs incurred need to be audited and accounted for prior any long-term social media implementation. Manpower to manage this initiative should not conveniently be the marketing team. This will avoid the initiative being stalled or reduced to crawling speed when the allocated (or should I say ‘arrowed’) resources are busy with their primarily work responsibilities.

Here are some pointers to take note:-
1. If you’re into blogging, build an editorial calendar and identify the resources required to write the blog posts. You will see if existing company resources are sufficient in handling that.

2. If you’re onto social networks, know what you want to do and intend to achieve from these networks. Allocate sufficient time per day to monitor, respond and engage the community in these networks. Review if your existing headcount can handle those tasks.

3. If you’re into flickr or youtube, ask if you have the resources in content creation. It sounds easy to grab a camera or video camera to shoot and post but realistically, it takes time to do that and more than often, the post-editing part is 2-3x the time spent on photography/filming. Identify costs of outsourcing these if you intend to.

4. In a long run, you will need someone to manage your social media initiatives. Identify consultant fees, workshops/courses for internal teams, agency fees and even a dedicated headcount if things get bigger.

I’m not saying social media is going to cost you an arm or a leg, neither am I saying it is not worth embracing it. The key is to set the expectations right.