Social Media Playtime Is Over

That Many Marketers Still 'Experimenting' Is Not a Good Sign

Posted by B.L. Ochman on 03.17.09 @ 09:06 AM

B.L. Ochman

Fifty percent of corporations surveyed in Forrester Research's "Social Media Playtime is Over" report are increasing social media spending in the face of the recession. But that's far from the point of the recently released report.

Three-quarters of those surveyed who knew their budgets said they allowed for $100,000 or less for social media tools over a 12-month period, according to the report, written by Forrester analyst Jeremiah K. Owyang. And they are not integrating social media into their overall marketing strategy. Instead, they are "experimenting" with isolated tactics and hoping that they will take the place of long-term strategy.

Furthermore, Owyang notes, social media is more of an after-thought than a marketing line item. "45-percent of marketers say their social budgets are determined as needed and 23-percent say they scrape together funds from wherever they can find them."

"Our data shows that marketers intend to invest more in social media but have yet to justify substantial budgets. If you continue to fund social applications only as experiments, you're unlikely to be able to do enough to make an impact or to have a secure source of funding for the future. One way to put these efforts on a firmer footing is to concentrate on objectives and measure progress toward those objectives, rather than just experimenting to see what happens. ... Without concentrating on measurable objectives, it will be difficult to justify further investment in the future."
"...As one of the few marketing budget items increasing during a recession, social media marketing needs to be taken seriously and treated as a corporate asset. To be successful, social media marketing must be managed as long-term programs, not short-term experiments. To succeed, make sure you have dedicated resources in place, including both social media strategists and community managers," writes Owyang.

Unfortunately, many social media strategists are still confronting conversations like this one, recently reported to me by a fellow social media strategist:

CMO: We want you to get bloggers to write about our site and generate 250K monthly visits through their posts.

Agency: What is your demographic? What is your goal for that traffic?

CMO: We want them to spend money on the site, and we want to see how much traffic social media can generate.

Agency: What support will you give to your "experiment"? Does your budget include search engine optimization? PR? Google advertising? Company blog? Advertising on targeted blogs? A forum? An interactive website? Content sponsorship? Sponsored blog posts? Videos? Print advertising? Email campaign?

CMO: Those cost money. We don't have budget available for any of those.

Agency: Who on your staff has this campaign as his/her full-time responsibility?

CMO: Nobody.

Agency: What other marketing tools can we employ? Can we create a blog? Facebook page? Flickr group? YouTube videos? Twitter? Can we participate in social networks including Friend Feed and other online communities?

CMO: Our legal department says we cannot allow people to write on the wall on our Facebook pages. We can't participate in Twitter because everything we say has to pass through legal first and approval can take several days. So any site where we are expected to engage in public conversation would be out.

As the Forrester study indicates, until the corporate side of that conversation changes. not much else will. In other words, companies need to KISS.

~ ~ ~
B.L. Ochman is a marketing strategist and blogger and can be found at WhatsNextOnline.com or her newest venture, Pawfun.com.

13 Comments

By nickkinports | Chicago, IL March 17, 2009 09:32:44 am:

Such a timely article - will be citing you B.L. and @jowyang later today in an internal presentation discussing the tools we have developed to overcome the roadblocks to social media in Fortune 50 clients. Thanks for the great summary!

http://www.twitter.com/admaven

http://admaven.blogspot.com

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By philvanp | CHATTANOOGA, TN March 17, 2009 10:37:30 am:

This article defines succinctly the gap between knowing that there is a new paradigm and being allowed to adopt it by the comfort level or flexibility of current frameworks and procedures.

There are 175M users on Facebook and hundreds of millions of blog posts a day. I can't think of any clearer evidence that the paradigm is shifting away from one-way communication (producer to consumer) and towards community and collaboration. There will be organizations who succeed by working out how to best leverage this new community. I feel that it will be the nimble, the daring and those focused on something more than next quarters results.

Look back 15 years to another paradigm shift where nimble and daring companies like Amazon took advantage and cemented their place in the greater economy. It's happening again and again wider exploration is being hampered by a lack of risk taking or even risk assessment.

The bigger question may be, why are companies scared to explore?

Phil Van Peborgh
philipvanp.wordpress.com
twitter.com/philvp

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By BL | NEW YORK, NY March 17, 2009 11:29:42 am:

Nicholas - I hope you're going to write about or post the presentation because a whole lot of companies can benefit from greater understanding of the long-term gains social media can provide.

Philip - companies are afraid of social media for several reasons: lawyers run the show rather than CMOs, and, since they are not permitted to experiment in a meaningful way, they don't learn the long-term benefits. It'll change eventually. But of course by then there will be new tools available for them to be afraid of. :>)

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By nickkinports | Chicago, IL March 17, 2009 11:56:53 am:

BL,

Would love to, but the presentation is about a new social media product that I have been hard at work on for quite a while - since we are in trials with several clients now I can't really show it off yet!

One thing is certain - the Owyang's study and your summary just became key pieces of the pres because they outline the need that our product solves very clearly! Love it!

http://www.twitter.com/admaven

http://admaven.blogspot.com

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By mondogrande | Ft Lauderdale, FL March 17, 2009 12:46:55 pm:

The agency asks, "how will the company support social media", SEO, Google advertisng, company blog etc...if the company is already doing most of these things they are already doing most of social medias job. Companies that are concerned with the amount of traffic rather than the quality need to rethink their conception of the internet.

http://www.proudtoliveinamerica.com

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By DavidGriffith | BETHEL, CT March 17, 2009 12:53:23 pm:

We have had success using social media to create buzz and drive traffic to promotional platforms. For most marketers this is a way to test the social network waters without having to staff up and fully expose the brand. This article does a great job of how advertising can take advantage of social networks.
http://promotions2.com/2009/new-rules-of-advertising-in-the-digital-age/

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By Stacy | LINDEN, MI March 17, 2009 01:41:32 pm:

Boy does that conversation sound familiar, it's almost verbatim of what I went through with a former client of mine -- a coffee shop chain of 100+ stores in the Midwest and Southeast. They pulled arbitrary numbers out of you-know-where as "goals" and expected me to work miracles increasing traffic, sales, yada yada yada and gave me not only NO budget to work with, but no room to breathe. Literally EVERYTHING I wanted to say on Facebook & elsewhere online about the company had to be approved by their higher-ups, and whenever I asked questions to them like, "What are you hoping to accomplish? Why do you want 5000+ more Facebook fans rather than 2500?" they would ignore my queries, yet ask me what my goals are.

I finally told them point blank "Look -- I can't tell you MY goals until you tell me yours, I really think you need to take a step back and ask yourselves more WHYs before you focus on the WHATs." They eventually listened to me and told me they needed to step back and reexamine their goals, and I basically talked myself out of a job, but they were so difficult to deal with I was glad to not be working with them anymore. Sadly, they're not the only company in that boat and I'm sure they're not my last client like that.

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By nickpan | Singapore March 17, 2009 10:05:01 pm:

You can't have the cake and eat it while not wanting to pay for it.

I think the brands who dare to take calculated risks & start a new era of conversation with their consumers will have lots to gain in the near future.

http://nickpan.com

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By KATHERINE | GUILFORD, CT March 18, 2009 09:26:56 am:

Our introduction of the new social marketing tools in the complex industrial B2B sector have focused on building them into what I call "lead generation machines". The goals here are both lower and higher--with the big challenge not being budget (they're low to begin with) but the premise that the "real" decision makers use the Web to this degree in the first place. The game changer here--where transactions are as much about knowledge as they are about goods-- will be the integration of social media into core business process technology.

http://www.twitter.com/kvcanipelli

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By michaelgass | ALABASTER, AL March 19, 2009 10:01:31 am:

B.L., another excellent post.

I would ad that it is unfortunate but social media to most ad agencies is still just an afterthought. I have found that the clients have been the ones to push, prod and poke their agency into participation. It's like the blind are leading the blind.

Agencies are still way behind the curve and have not been seriously participating in this space and most still don't get it.

http://www.twitter.com/michaelgass
http://www.fuelingnewbusiness.com

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By gerardmclean | Englewood, OH March 19, 2009 11:20:35 am:

@Phil "There are 175M users on Facebook and hundreds of millions of blog posts a day. I can't think of any clearer evidence that the paradigm is shifting away from one-way communication (producer to consumer) and towards community and collaboration."

And that bit of evidence may even negate the point you are trying to make. With so much activity claiming to be two-way communication, it really only becomes one-way. The blogger writes something, the reader reads and comments, but there are so many comments and so many readers than your opinion just hides in plain sight.

I contend that the more we move toward a 2-way exchange, the more 1-way we will become simply because it will be like attempting to drink from a fire hose.

The people who are in Social Media THEN and are the gurus NOW (Chris Brogan, Guy Kawasaki, etc) are only gurus because they got in before the flood. Who cares about anyone else new.

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By BL | NEW YORK, NY March 19, 2009 11:07:08 pm:

Gerard - getting in early is the only reason some people have made names for themsleves online. Guy Kawasaki, Chris Brogan, Steve Rubel, etc (and, ahem, I) have been sharing quality content for years. New people do crop up all the time, and it is definitely possible to make a name for yourself in a relatively short time is what you have is something that resonates.

Melanie Notkin of Savvyauntie.com is a great example of someone with a good idea, willing to work her butt off to get the word out, and using the tools at hand very effectively.

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By lindayale | Beijing March 25, 2009 04:28:21 am:

Indeed ... This is the problem we should cope with

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