Enamored With Social Media Marketing? Don't Forget Search and ...

Social media marketing is top of mind with everyone today and for good reason. It?s new(ish) and it?s exciting. It?s also the hip and ?in thing? to be associated with if you are a marketer.

The question to ask yourself though is this, ?Is my concentration on social media marketing taking my efforts away from places that, while much less sexy, have the majority of Internet users using them??

Sadly, if many marketers are being honest, the answer would be yes. Money is being redistributed within online budgets to pay for social media ads because the big players like Facebook and Twitter are pushing it hard. Why? They need revenue and lots of it. At what price? Just look at the impact changes at Facebook regarding advertising have had on engagement for one New York Times writer.

So what might marketers be overlooking in this rush to be all things social? Good old search and email marketing. These numbers from eMarketer around the adoption rate of both are hard to ignore.

FOR EMAIL

FOR SEARCH

Granted, if you look at the fine print for these results the parameters for these numbers are pretty loose in that all that is required to be counted is that a person look at email or use search at least once a month. How many people use these things that infrequently though? Not many.

The takeaway here is that marketers must make sure that while they need to be at the leading edge of what is considered the ?future of marketing? it should never be at the expense of what might work best in the present. Balance between the ?tried and true? and the ?new and exciting? should be struck to ensure that marketers are not leaving money on either table.

How do you feel about the old standards of search and email marketing? Are they something that will start to fade in favor of social or is social simply another way to reach a market and should be treated accordingly?

Source: http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2013/03/enamored-with-social-media-marketing-dont-forget-search-and-email.html

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