What You See is What You Get?

While browsing through TopRank Blog, I encountered an entry about how social media has overshadowed the value of PR professionals because of the easiness and accessibility of  social media tools like Twitter, Facebook and Youtube. It is quite easy to sign up or download a social media account or tool, create a username and advertise away, but the question raised in this entry was if it was effective. Does it bring the same kind of quality one would hope for if an experienced professional was involved? Can tweeting about a promotion for one’s company really “influence business outcomes”?

I found those questions quite provoking because I always believed that social media was this new and upcoming component to marketing strategies that should be considered in all circumstances in order to stand a chance against competitors. We talk about it constantly in class. My position is that one can excel at marketing strategies purely through social media if the business has savvy people who know how to stir up the internet crowd. An example would be the owner of a green beauty spa and nail salon place called She to Shic. I met the owner, Erin, during a networking session last year and she does a majority of her sales promotion purely through Twitter! I followed the salon’s account  after because she sold the idea quite well to me. It was about parting every day quotes about health and beauty to her clients and then adding the occasional perk such as encouraging clients to tweet back for a discount on their next manicure. Sometimes the tweets would just be a reminder that Thursday is Mother and Daughter pedicure night.

In this example, Erin has a strong enough client base that knows where she is promoting the business and that’s where she is mainly focusing to advertise her business because it is free and convenient. I witnessed her tweet away while she was networking. For a start up company like She to Shic, social media serves as a great medium for marketing tactics. Erin may not be a PR pro, but she is quite good at making the most of her resources.

As for a large multi-million dollar company, of course social media is going to still be a factor for marketing, but they have the resources for lucrative campaigns and hiring consultants to develop strategies to influence sales. The value of a PR firm is higher to a company such as Honda because it is trying to reach a global crowd compared to a small local company that has a loyal customer base of probably just a certain area of Vancouver.

It was still an interesting blog and I do agree with the idea that you are not a social media consultant/expert if all you can do is login, push a few buttons and display a few quotes. There still has to be some strategy to it, but over all one cannot deny how social media really has turned the marketing world upside down and right side up (in a good way).

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