Social media is here to stay and with it come even more opportunities for advertising salespeople to try and part us from our hard earned money.
But as yet, few of us know much about advertising on social media and have to rely on people who claim to have been in at the beginning and understand how it works to explain the advantages to us. It's easy to get carried away, only to discover that you have agreed to advertise on an obscure site or one that is totally inappropriate for your company's needs.
So how do you know when these social media ‘experts' are telling the truth and when they are spouting rubbish? According to Social Media Explorer it is really quite easy to spot the latter.
If one of them calls to persuade you to invest your shrinking marketing budget in advertising on one of their social media client sites or perhaps to invest vast sums of money with them so they can produce a ‘tailored social media strategy', watch out for the following:
1. It only takes them 15 seconds of the first answer to mention Twitter.
2. They talk continually about "conversation" "listening" and "engagement" but never define what those are or what it means for your company to practice them.
3. They talk about "the rules" of social media marketing.
4. Their references don't include businesses they've activated a social media strategy or tactic for.
5. When you ask about your website or search engine results they say neither have anything to do with social media.
6. When you ask how they do market research they answer, "I use Google."
You can read the full article at: http://www.socialmediaexplorer.com/social-media-marketing/spotting-bullshit/
You have been warned!
Posted Date: 26th Aug 2011