Innfinite?s take on social media at 11 June 2012

Innfinite’s take on social media, by Al Kao

(I just had to reproduce this, its right down our street, the way we think all written down very effectively, we could hardly put it better -  .

Enjoy.)

Never trust an agency to talk about "social media". Why? Because it IS so new you have NO expertise. So everything you are doing is experimental, at best. You are experimenting with clients' money. You also don't have people on board who are experts. You new college grads who are "experts" in social media (as a hobby, not as a profession). You can't hire top talent, you can't home grow top talent and you can't do either within enough time to get clients to fully trust you.

Trust me. I know. I used to work in an agency. I know the game. CTR is most definitely a valuable metric still used. And the inhouse teams DO use that metric. It's important. A paltry 0.07% CTR is terrible for any business. You say, well it's good for brand awareness. Brands like what? Actually sit down and use Facebook as a user, not as some arrogant know-it-all self-righteous digital marketer. You will see that the ads 1) suck 2) are uninteresting and 3) are mostly big names Why? Because of the ads that do show up. The Ads and Sponsored Stories. To the user, both are the same - ads. Who cares if its an ad or sponsored story. Then to top it all off, you have suggested friends and suggested pages to like. All of this equals POOR ADS! now you say "well, I also meant FB posts etc."

Well, let me tell you about those - they suck too. Unless I'm promoting a coupon I can't get too much traction or attention from FB users. Why? BECAUSE MY COMPANY ISN'T TOP OF MIND FOR THEM WHEN THEY USE FACEBOOK! Seriously - I am so sick and tired of agency farts talking up social media. Just another excuse for agencies to swindle more money from clients.

 Look here - from the user's perspective, if I like a brand, there's only 2 reasons for it 1) I'm incentivized to like it and pay attention to it 2) I genuinely like the brand, but I'm not hanging on their every friggin post or ad to fulfill my life. Get over it. Social Media is an important channel, but not a game changer. And at the end of the day - social media requires not only my signing in, but my attention in order for the ads to work. A lot of bloody "ifs". Social Media ads are for the dogs. Oh - and here's something fun. Social Media ads are like content ads in SEM campaigns - good for when you need to burn through a budget and get traffic - not good for quality. No matter how much you insist Social Ads help with "brand awareness" ...by the way, I challenge you to prove that social media builds brand awareness. start with something totally unknown and test to see if it grows. account for specific influencers. make sure you have your controls. i know you can't prove it.