Budgeting Social Media for 2011

"Marketers Spending More on Social Media for the Wrong Reasons," posted by Debra Aho Williamson at the end of 2010 on eMarketer.com is a worthwhile article about the right approach for adding social media into a company's overall marketing plan. Williamson provides sound advice on how to "integrate" versus "add" social media into a company's menu of marketing tools. I also agree with Williamson that an early establishment of analytic tools is beneficial to calculate actual ROI ....where I disagree, is the identified "wrong reasons" for adding social media to the marketing budget.

Williamson documents an increase in social media marketing spending and applauds that "skeptical marketing executives" now understand its importance. But, she criticizes marketers for "relying on gut instinct... [that social media] is something important," and their budgeting social media spending because they "are afraid of losing ground" to competitors that have successfully incorporated social media. Really, though, those are perfect reasons to increase a social marketing budget.

Agreed, a plan is needed to maximize use of social media dollars, but if competition is hot on social media, then competitors need to get in the game, and get in fast. And, maybe to marketers that are old school (to whom social media is a concept not fully understood) is it a "gut instinct" to add social media but, really, for the ultra-connected e-marketers that are evaluating spending for 2011, it is a reality that social media has to be part of the mix. So, not really relevant if some marketers are going by "gut instinct." Because their "instinct" is on the mark. Social media is "something important."

Yes, social media needs to be managed so that conflicting messages are not being sent out from marketing, executive staff, sales, customer service, etc. Nonetheless, just because money has been added to the social media budget doesn't mean there is not a plan for spending that is consistent with the company's mission and marketing collateral.

http://www.emarketer.com/blog/index.php/marketers-spending-social-media-wrong-reasons/