Joy to the world of social media marketing!

All right, enough with the melodramatic influencer list love for now. Let's get back to marketing.

'Cause marketing is hard work. And hard work leads to influence.

All right, I'm stopping.

Read a little news blurp this morning at BtoB titled Poll: CMOs plan to boost social media spend for 2010.

According to an online survey of 133 chief marketing officers conducted by social media monitoring company Bazaarvoice, together with the CMO Club, 66% of respondents said they would boost their social media budgets next year, with about 75% saying they would attach sales goals to their social media spend.

I'm not surprised and have spoken with many HR suppliers who are also interested in adding the social media marketing channel to their marketing efforts, or already have, meaning:

Because simply put, that's what it takes - social media isn't free.

Measuring return via increased sales can also cost depending on the tools and services you use.

But herein lies the continual conundrum we've discussed before - How is [insert marketing tactic] going to help generate sales?

Would this tactic likely have a direct and immediate impact on sales?

Marketing does not work like this - it's more of a cumulative effect. That's why we recommend companies engage in a variety of marketing and PR tactics. This is what best-in-class companies do - from investing in SEO to producing regular "content", direct marketing, advertising, exhibiting, webcasts, media relations and 'social" marketing such as podcasts and blogging (and ideally, Twitter but we'll take it one step at a time).

It works.

And it's hard work.

Based on another recent post of ours, Get a little messy AND measure stuff. Contradictions are the new marketing chic:

Stop the methodical marketing madness and start a conversation. Get a little messy. It’s real and it works.

That's what I mean by adding social media marketing to your mix. I’m a big fan of the softer outcomes such as familiarity and trust and sharing our valuable content and that of other influencers, customers and prospects. The more familiarity and trust I build with my customers, prospects and influencers, the more valuable my company becomes to them.

Relationship building helps us grow our company. We hear it anecdotally again and again of late from our customers and agency clients.

However, I get the fact that in order to know if your social media efforts are helping your grow your company, you don’t want touchy-feely bunnies, unicorns and rainbows. (Remember, at some point you have to shut-up and sell.)

So while it's good news that more CMO's are investing in social media marketing, I recommend that HR supplier marketers:

Joy to the world of social media marketing!

Post by Kevin W. Grossman (join me on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn - and now join HRmarketer on Twitter!


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