Social Media Doesn't Work

Nor do cell phones, the internet, email or billboards for that mater. No, really none of it works without a message to communicate. It all comes down to communication. So, if you don’t know what to say and when to say it, what’s the easiest thing to do? Blame the medium.

Stop complaining and start communicating

In addition to hearing “social media doesn’t work,” I’ve heard the following in the last week or so.

“Email marketing is all spam, so no one even looks at it anymore.”

“Print is dead.”

“Direct mail marketing is a waste of time and money.”

“Cold calling doesn’t work.”

I could go on but what if the people making those blanket statements stopped for two seconds and considered the following: “You’re doing it wrong.” It’s not that social media (or cold calling, direct mail, email or any medium for that matter) doesn’t work.

Not all marketing campaigns work

I ran a fairly successful marketing campaign about a year ago that consisted of two direct mail pieces and two email pieces being sent to each prospect over a four-week period. The special offer was also promoted via social media. It was successful enough that I said to myself “aha, I’ve got the magical formula now!” I tried to run a similar campaign two months later to a different targeted list and guess what? It was an almost total failure.

I could have quit right then after saying: “These damn cross-media marketing campaigns don’t work!.” Instead, I tried again a couple months later with yet another target list (half the folks from the first campaign and half from the second) and achieved success similar to the first campaign.

What am I not telling you?

Well, I took a long hard look at that second campaign. I’d done it wrong. I re-read my copy for that campaign and upon reflection it down right sucked. The communication mediums all work when properly utilized. The trick is to get your message right. You have to understand your target audience and speak to their needs and address the pain points in their existence. If you fail to do that, all the above negative statements will be self-fulfilling prophecies.

Photo Credit