Social media: the silver bullet of marketing strategy?

It is a fact that most businesses are by now convinced about the potential of the social media as marketing tools and the need to integrate them into their marketing strategy. Many do this already: Look for example to the Social Media Monitor (report5): In the Netherlands the adoption of social media marketing strategies by the top 100 businesses* was 92% in 2012  up from 14% in 2008. 70% of these companies have a Social Media Manager while this position din not exist 4 years ago. In any similar report you read you see the same picture emerging: the social media is hot!

These positive news however should not detract those who are seriously working on this topic either as academics or practitioners from the real issues:

-          Do marketers really know how to exploit the full potential of the social media as marketing tools? And do they use them the right way?
-          Is social media marketing the comprehensive answer to the challenges of the marketing field today? Some of these challenges: empowerment and techno-savvy consumer, depletion of effectiveness of the traditional marketing tools, market globalization and increasing technological progress bringing new techniques and technologies to the market every day. Some of these techniques and technologies are: mobile computing, Internet of Things, wearable technologies, RFID, cloud computing and Neuromarketing.

My answer based on my personal observations to both these questions is simply “No”. I think that businesses have gone some way on the social media strategy arena but they have to go much further. Next to this I do not believe that social media marketing is the single answer to the challenges facing today’s marketers: there are many more issues to be addressed.

What these challenges and issues are and what are my personal views on the future of marketing strategy? This will be the subject of my talk in the E-Travel Summit on 30 October in Almere.

 *Based on their advertising budget