Why Branding and Social Media Do Not Help Your Business Grow.
Where to put your time and effort, instead.

As my marketing agency, Annodyne, returns to its roots to also serve middle market companies, I’ve been thinking a lot about branding and social media and how they perform.
Micro-businesses and personal brands use social media to build awareness and visibility.
Huge Fortune 50 companies use it as a critical channel to communicate with individual customers.
Both use branding as a way to create a personality for the business and get their name out there.
But what are the roles of social media and branding for a middle market company with goals for growth and a limited marketing budget?
DO MIDDLE MARKET COMPANIES NEED “BRANDING”?
When middle market clients approach us and tell us they need assistance with their branding and social media, I often wonder what causes them to choose those tactics.
Do they understand how costly it is to brand?
Do they want people to know their name, or do they want increased sales?
Do they know that sales are rarely attributed to social media postings?
Do they realize how difficult it is to track ROI back to their investment?
I’ve come to realize — after having deeper conversations with middle market business owners — what they really mean is: can you help make my company grow?
The world of branding can be misleading and the social media world can be even worse. Branding was certainly something discussed back in their grad school days and marketing classes. Many times they believe branding is important to business growth. And they believe that social media is critical as well, because they’re constantly hearing about it.
So they’re ready to dive in, without fully understanding what they need and how to get there. They also have very high expectations on what the outcome should be.
WILL SOCIAL MEDIA HELP A MID-SIZED COMPANY GROW?
Frankly, it won’t.
Social media (when done well) certainly doesn’t hurt a company’s ability to grow.
But with advancements in algorithms and fewer and fewer followers seeing a company’s organic posts on platforms such as Facebook, organic social media is strained to make a difference by way of increased sales for the middle market.
Similarly, the rapid rate of new content and posts on Twitter make a company’s occasional posts a mere “flash in the pan”. This lack of visibility and resonance doesn’t allow these forms of communication to contribute to a company’s growth.
All of this can be frustrating when you’re spending hours trying to use it to generate buzz and new customers.
Does your business have goals for growth that you’re struggling to achieve? Find out why by taking this quiz.
WHERE DO YOU INVEST YOUR MARKETING TIME, INSTEAD?
Rather than consuming hours each week on branding and social media, middle market entrepreneurs should invest in other tactics, if increasing sales is the goal.
As the old adage goes: if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.
I’ve come to realize that the marketing programs middle market business owners find most impactful are the ones that:
- Generate leads and new inquiries.
- Are measurable and performance-driven.
- Ultimately generate new or additional revenue.
Unfortunately, for the reasons already stated in this piece, branding and social media rarely — if ever — meet all of those criteria.
Because of this, entrepreneurs should look past the buzz and hype around branding and social media.
Rather than launch a marketing program because they think they should or because everyone else is doing it, launch one because it’s highly probable to contribute to business growth. And then constantly measure it to be certain it achieves positive revenue results that can be attributed back to a particular marketing activity.
