Social Media (SM) is revolutionizing how we communicate – making it faster and easier than ever before to ‘reach out and touch someone’. The lure of this immediacy has convinced many B2B executives and even a few marketers that SM is THE answer. More than once we’ve been asked to ‘flip the social media switch’ in place of a comprehensive campaign.

The assumption is, of course, the ‘instant’ nature of SM can somehow circumvent the well-documented purchase decision cycle to produce immediate demand, sales and revenue. Is SM really the marketer’s panacea?

Effective marketing campaigns are built on a well integrated mix of tactics designed to systematically move prospects through the sales funnel. Consider the many tools marketers use: Ads, e-communications, public relations, collateral, events – the list goes on and on. Each has a purpose, and they work together to maximize strengths while shoring up weaknesses.  JH&A’s LaunchPad! provides a comprehensive overview of these tools to help marcom professionals define an appropriate mix.

The question is: Can a social media strategy effectively do the job of all or even most of the tactics I’m asking it to replace?

Consider how SM is used. SM is the preferred communications avenue of Cyberkids and Millennials. The Gen-X crowd is not far behind, but many in this group still prefer person-to-person interaction. Gen-X’ers tend to view SM from a convenience perspective rather than the pervasive lifestyle approach Cyberkids and Millennials have adopted.

Together, these groups span teens to those in their early 50s. If this age range includes your target audience AND you are able to effectively move decision-makers to purchase through a patter of bite-size info-nuggets, SM may well be the answer.

B2B sales cycles often take six to 12 months or even longer to complete. Costs range from hundreds to hundreds of thousands of dollars. The decision-making process often involves multiple disciplines and management layers. In most organizations, the final ok and check authorization comes from the C-suite. Many of these executives are Boomers, who as a group have been much slower to adopt SM’s conventions.

How likely is a C-suite executive to make a complex, expensive purchase decision based on a series of tweets, Facebook posts, Snapchats or any other SM input? When was the last time YOU made a weighty decision based on a few hundred characters and a picture or two?

There are of course rare exceptions, but generally speaking SM delivers no more intrinsic value than any other marketing tactic. Properly conceived and managed, SM can be a valuable addition to the overall marketing mix. But it requires expertise and intensive effort to maintain distribution networks, produce and manage branded content, and pump out the appropriate number of relevant daily messages it takes to make SM work.

While SM’s ROI is difficult to quantify – especially in the B2B world – savvy marketers can always find a place for it in the mix. It is a valuable tool that offers unique advantages. But trusting SM or any other ‘silver bullet’ tactic to be effective as a stand-alone strategy will almost certainly lead to disappointing results.

John Wilkinson
Business Communications Strategist
JH&A Advertising