Marketology

The Internet’s almost saturated with articles which talk about social media and marketing in the same vein. It can’t be further from the truth. Applying a little common sense will tell you that the primary consumers of such information are marketers themselves. It’s almost like everyone’s jumped on to the social marketing bandwagon without questioning why. 

The truth is that social strategy by iteself doesn’t have any legs to stand on. I always advocate a holistic approach to online marketing of which social media is just one component, the others being ensuring your content reaches the right people, focus, engagement and most importantly creating and sharing meaningful content. 

A brand can use social media to garner likes, or goodwill if you will, but that’s about it. Social media is primarily a tool that people use to connect to their friends, discover interesting (mostly free) things online and to wind down after a day’s work. 

So my response is a big emphatic no. Social media can’t sell soap, atleast not in a practically viable way. At the end of the day, it’s a networking tool, not a selling tool. Those who lose sight of this fact and spend thousands of dollars in ‘

doing’ social have got it all wrong.