Social Marketing is Just One Arrow in the Quiver

April 29th, 2009 by John Marianetti

At Martino Flynn, we’re all about delivering ROI – return on ideas. It’s what we do. As a matter of fact, it’s what we’ve always done. We think about your brand and we think about strategic and creative ideas to promote it and get consumers and customers to interact with it. Now with all the conversation lately on social media, I want to warn against abandoning traditional media in favor of social media. Don’t get me wrong, I love social media. However, social media works best when it’s integrated with traditional media. You see, social media is just one arrow in the quiver and at this point some will argue that it’s the most important arrow.

Allowing people to have conversations with like-users about your brand is a great thing. As an advertiser or product manager, to join in on that conversation is an even greater thing. Actually, I would consider it a privilege. What an awesome opportunity to instantaneously mine for information, feedback and advice about your brand from your customers in a free and open dialogue.

We have a Xerox client who is member of a few graphics arts and digital printing social media groups. She listens to—and participates in—conversations within their groups, offering advice and solutions to problems and business challenges that they may share. She’s positioning Xerox as an expert and value-added problem solver to the graphic arts and digital printing industry and is eventually driving traffic back to Xerox.com for more information. Whether your social presence is in a blog or Facebook or other social media site, participate in the conversation. Integration with traditional media will only help strengthen your brand.

— John Marianetti

This entry was posted by John Marianetti on Wednesday, April 29th, 2009 and is filed under Ad business, Brand Strategy, Clients, MF, Marketing, Online Advertising, Social Media, Technology, Trend Spotting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.