Business - Written Wednesday, November 19, 2008 by Denis Hancock - 2 Comments

Social Media Marketing: long-term dividends vs. being a waste of time

Just came across an interesting post by Peter Da Vanzo on seobook.com – Is social media marketing a waste of time? If you read through the post, it’s easy to jump to the conclusion that the author is saying “hell yeah!”, as all 7 points he explores focus on problems and issues with leveraging social media. However, I find it particularly interesting that buried at the bottom of #7 is the following snippet:

Social media tends to pay dividends in the long-term. Social media, generally speaking, is hard to influence, but by understanding your field well and creating relationships in your niche, you can learn to create the types of content that influencers will pick up on. Like the mavens in The Tipping Point, they will spread your message for you.

Call me crazy, but I think there is a fairly large chasm between “marketing through social media is a waste of time” and “social media tends to pay dividends in the long-term”. Particularly when the article is focused (rightly) on the idea that if marketing doesn’t lead to sales, it’s useless for a company. But the value of those companies actually is the value of the dividends investors will get over the long-term, and if social media helps inflate them, then it is certainly valuable.

But that said, I did find many of his points interesting to think about. Notably:

Continue…