Get It Together, Social Media Experts
There’s been a lot of buzz of late over whether social media editors have a place in the future of media and marketing. The modern wisdom says that social media is part and parcel of any digital media strategy; but a new way of thinking has emerged that raises some legitimate questions about the value and necessity to employ people in such outspoken roles without much proven return. Nobody is debating whether social media has a place. It’s just the role of social media editor is starting to show its wear and tear. If you’re a VP of marketing these days, you should be wondering and second-guessing why you’ve hired for that specific position, particularly if it took away from the head count in another group. It’s nice to see brands getting “human,” but toward what end?
Today, I’ve attended several sessions at an integrated marketing conference. Some of the information and predictions and analysis intrigue me, and will help me do my job better. Other panels, however, have left me with more questions than answers. It’s the ones that grapple with social media and how to profit from it, or even prove any revenue numbers at all, that have left the audience unsatisfied and skeptical. At the most recent one I attended, which was promoted as the panel that would finally answer that question, the panelists side-stepped all questions about metrics attached to social media instead talking about more “squishy” ones like “reach” and total follow count. Those are nice, but don’t push a brand forward. And they won’t appease people who are coming in dubious about the entire platform and process.
When an audience member asked toward the end very directly about revenue and conversions, one of the panelists flat out told her that there’s no magic formula and encouraged her to convince her boss to stop thinking of social media in that way. And to find “another way to measure.” What is that supposed to be? Unclear. That’s an area where the panelists all day panelists have ducked and dodged, saying something vague like how every company is different and should set reasonable goals and expectations for itself, recognizing limitations. Social media should be viewed like a billboard, they argue, where you can chalk up some branding wins, and not much else. It’s only because social media is digital, they believe, that VPs are casting an analytical eye on it.
To that, I say to social media experts, get ahold of yourselves. Don’t host panels promising to resolve these questions once and for all. It’s uncomfortable to sit in the audience and hear that there’s no proven payoff to doing this work. At one point, a panelist advised in the screening process before hiring content managers to see how that person runs his or her own feed. If it’s “all over the place,” you won’t get the sense they’d do a good job with your company feed, and “they are doing social for social’s sake.” I get the impression today that many brands are in that category, and they know it. Listening to the marketing experts pump it up even more at conferences like this one, I worry that there’s more hype in this field than there is hope.
