Social Media Is Here To Stay

While searching for inspiration for this blog, I came across a post from MediaPost Raw about social media.  Its last line was a quote from Ekaterina Walter of Intel, and it struck something in me.  It went like this: “Please don’t let your client say: ‘Can I just hire an intern, these young folks know how to create a Facebook page, and it’s cheap!’ Social media is not cheap!”

Yes,  “these young folks” know how to create a Facebook page.  Yes, we spend more time on Facebook than we’d like to admit, and it is true that we’ve been active on Facebook longer than other demographics.  (Remember those days when only college students could create Facebook accounts?) But that doesn’t mean we know the intricacies of every social media platform or the best way to communicate your brand to the social media public.

I mentioned in my previous blog that I’ve been on Twitter for almost a year, but it’s only recently that I truly dove into the social media jungle.  Here at OCM, I am responsible for the social media presence of several clients.  In order to make sure that I am posting the best content for each client and that my posts are reaching as many people as possible, I’ve researched and experimented with both sites, and I’m continuing to learn and adjust each day as I continue the campaigns.   It’s no secret that content is king, or that user value must be communicated clearly, but I don’t think these important lessons are apparent to the average Facebook user—I know the weren’t obvious to me prior to my experience at OCM.

While many social media sites are free to access, successful execution of a social media campaign relies on much more than one of “these young folks” creating a page and posting every few days.  It requires thoughtful planning, a thorough understanding, and diligent execution, to say the least.

I think that one of the great things about social media is that it’s constantly changing, and everyone active with it is still learning.  We don’t know everything about it yet or what the next platform will be, and it’s so easy to manipulate that we may never figure it out entirely.  Regardless of your personal usage, I think social media in marketing is here to stay, and as professionals, we better keep up!