You can’t go far without hearing about, encountering or participating in social media. Whether it is blogs, newsletters, forums, user-generated or social bookmarking sites, social media is quickly stealing the marketing limelight. And with Web sites like Facebook, boasting over 200 million active members worldwide, it’s not surprising clients are increasingly interested in, and sometimes consumed with, learning how to incorporate social media into their marketing efforts. While there’s no denying that social media can be incredibly powerful, it’s interesting to compare its effectiveness to other Internet marketing tactics, such as SEO and paid search.

As an interactive agency, Rise brings value to clients by increasing our customers’ acquisition rate and growing their profitability and business. Because we are so analytics-driven, it has been challenging to totally embrace social media as the results are typically much less measurable than other channels. As a result, you won’t hear Rise necessarily joining in the resounding social media praise. We tend to take more of a cautiously optimistic approach towards the medium. For example, implementing a social media campaign for a manufacturing client most likely won’t have too great an impact on their customer acquisition rate and we would be more likely to recommend other tactics. However, if promoting a public group or household brand, social media can have profound effects on reputation management and customer retention and acquisition, therefore making it more of a priority in the marketing mix.

At Rise, we recommend first taking into consideration the six channels of Internet marketing–SEO, paid search, e-mail marketing, social media, affiliate marketing and display advertising–and evaluating how social media works into that mix. Is it the star tactic, or more of a backdrop to compliment the rest of the campaign?

This entry was posted on Monday, July 13th, 2009 at 5:56 pm and is filed under Rise Interactive, Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.