In the previous article, we examined some of the benefits of social media marketing. With all of the advantages, why would anyone not get on board? Well there are definitely some draw backs to this type of marketing.

With any type of marketing done online using a free platform, the business runs the risk of quickly releasing content without fully controlling what it is putting out there. For example, if a small business owner who doesn’t have much time to run their business let alone tweet, facebook, instagram, and pinterest, is in charge of everything, they might just put a post out there with spelling mistakes or upload an unwanted photo and once it is out in cyberspace and people see it, even if it is taken down that is still all people will talk about. Another issue for larger companies is that if you choose to outsource your social media or pass it down to an intern and that employee is terminated, you need to have a plan in place to ensure that said employee does not still have access to all of the accounts. Otherwise, they could be able to take out their frustrations over being let go on the company. Take HMV’s recent disaster where “An angry employee, one of several hundred let go by the company that day during a round of mass layoffs, decided to vent her frustrations – on HMV’s official Twitter account.” Needless to say, when something interesting hits the twittersphere, it spreads like wildfire and there is nothing a company big or small can do to stop it. A very dangerous aspect to social media marketing is the fact that a company can easily be taken down by one small comment that is taken the wrong way which forces companies to be on top of their game since the risks of offending or upsetting customers are so high. Another similar issue happened with Applebee’s restaurant chain in the US when, in the opinion of her fellow employees, a waitress was wrongfully terminated by management and took to the world of social media to garner attention on the matter. The issue quickly spiralled out of control with Applebee’s management handling everything so poorly that the issue actually went viral. Months later companies are now using this story as a social media “what not to do”.

In our digital age, social media marketing is a phenomenon that is only gaining momentum. There’s everything from full blown twitter and Facebook ad campaigns with celebrity endorsements designed to increase viewership and “followers” for large corporations such as Coca-Cola or 7 For All Mankind Jeans to your local wine shop just down the street. With all of the benefits of social media marketing, it is no wonder that it has caught on so quickly. Some of the benefits of using social media include the ability to communicate directly with customers, gaining their feedback to improve products; launching contests to spread the word about a new product; gaining VIP access to events such as klout scores; and leveraging celebrity endorsements via photos on instagram, a quick tweet, or even video uploads.

The 7 For All Mankind’s Facebook campaign even went so far as hiring James Franco to direct a series of videos to be released gradually allowing people to vote on the ending. They had a grand prize at the end in anticipation of the release of their newest style of jeans garnering over 300,000 followers on Facebook alone… who knew jeans could be so exciting? Most of all, social media marketing can be incredibly cheap, involving mostly just the cost of endorsements, video or photo shoot content.

Unlike print media and television, social media marketing is inclusive to all types of businesses from big to small. In part two, we will take a closer look at some of the downfalls of social media marketing and examine some real cases of where social media went extremely wrong.