What in the World Is Social Media Marketing?

We needed a study to know that?

Social media marketing is the practice of paying a bunch of Millennials to play around all day on Facebook in ways that put your company's reputation at risk.

It doesn't actually generate any sales, but it does get your brands plenty of "likes," which is even cooler. Unless you have to pay the bills.

But social media marketing (our Publishing Word of the Day) does gain you the approval of the thousands upon thousands of social media marketing consultants whose recommended solution to every problem is -- get this -- social media marketing.

The great thing about social media marketing is that it doesn't involved "paid media" -- AKA advertising. It's free. Sort of.

I  know of a financial-services company that kept an entire team at its marketing agency busy running its Facebook page -- which had about 400 followers. Because the client was heavily regulated, every post had to undergo thorough legal review.

There was nothing especially original or share-worthy about the page. It mostly called out and linked to articles on various publishers' web sites -- articles that were relevant enough that anyone clicking through usually saw an ad for at least one of the client's competitors.

But not the client's ads: It had no budget for advertising.

So, basically, the marketing agency was sucking up the client's entire marketing budget to create something that didn't do any marketing. But at least the client could put a check mark next to "social media marketing.

Breaking news: People aren't exactly waiting breathlessly to see another tweet about your awesome product. Marketing messages dressed up as social media sharing are about as popular as a turd in a punch bowl.


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