The biggest ripoff in social media

jaykeith Hey, bud. Thanks for stopping by and sharing your POV. Always respect your perspective. My only problem with the scenario you describe above is that it seems a bit idealistic. I guess if you're talking a big company with a multi-million dollar IMC budget, then there might be a scenario where this type of spend wouldn't be irresponsible. Perhaps when $500K-$1 million has been allocated to social media ad buys. But I would consider the following when assessing that or any situation:

1) What could a client get for its money by spending that same amount on Twitter in another way e.g. promoted tweets, listening and engaging. I just don't see a scenario where listening and engaging doesn't get you more in the long run. Especially since you can be so much more targeted when listening and engaging. Also, promoted tweets seem much more valuable than promoted trends. I use Tweetdeck and Ubersocial on my blackberry. I never see a promoted trend. But I do see promoted tweets. And have even responded to them before because they are seamlessly integrated into my feeds.

2) I don't think we can compare Facebook ads an Twitter promoted trends/tweets as an apples to apples. The most successful Facebook ads are the ones where something is recco'd to me because my friends like it. Facebook has done a solid job integrating suggestions from my friends into their paid options. Twitter has not done this yet and therefore, I don't think its ad options are as beneficial.

3) We've got to stop putting so much stock in exposure as an IMC metric, especially when it comes to our engagement tactics. If we were weighting metrics, exposure examples like impressions should weight fairly low. Especially because a lot of the eyeballs I get with Twitter promoted trends won't be targeted to the customer audience I'm trying to reach.

Obviously, you can see I have my reservations :). But I would be interested in hearing more about what you heard from Twitter or case studies you saw. If you can share specifics here, cool. If not, lets talk offline sometime. Cheers.

JGoldsborough jaykeith Would be happy to discuss offline and talk specifics JG, of course. You know how to find me!

But, if you just put your marketing cap on and use this as a one time cost associated with a bigger campaign, that's where the value can come into play. Sometimes a campaign isn't meant to drive long term engagement and relationships (movies as an example), you just want to get the product/event/name out to as many eyeballs as possible and drive real time conversion.

I'm not saying this is a perfect way to market, I'm just saying it's one way to market. I would land more in your court and say that a longer tail campaign with more strategy and long term benefits is a better way to go using SM platforms. We're doing it every day at VP. But that's not quick or painless, promoted trends can be. You and I are also communicators, we're biased and not always using the marketing mind frame of "see, click, convert" which drives a lot of sales online. That's why this promoted trends model (as well as promoted tweets - agree with you those will be most effective) can work for some companies when used correctly and with the right goals. To me, being great in social media means finding the right balance between the two: great engagement/relationships while tying back to clear monetary/brand goals that are measurable and achievable. You can't have all engagement with no sales, and you can't have all sales with no engagement. A middle ground has to be reached.

To give you a bit more perspective, my company probably won't be taking advantage of promoted trends anytime soon, but that's because we know based on surveys that our core customers don't use Twitter. The brands spending money - HBO, Toyota, Samsung - all have clear consumer products/platforms that probably DO reach a big Twitter audience. For them, it's worth it. They get some followers (that they can continue to market to), some sales (immediate clicks and conversions), and brand awareness (millions of eyeballs) for their product, etc.

Is it a great long term marketing strategy? Absolutely not. Is it a good way to augment a one time campaign (one that's spending say $1 million anyways)? I think that it could, and it's not an accident the price has gone up over the past year. Companies are obviously paying for these and seeing the benefits. (again I know first hand two that have).

Here's what I would compare promoted trends to: A local company that's having a grand opening, paying for a plane to fly overhead for an hour with a banner touting what's going on in town (time, place, etc.) It's a one day thing, you might get an extra hundred people to show up as a result and you will probably end up making a little bit more money out of it. It's just another lever to pull to drive some awareness, let everyone know who/what you are. Some of those people will end up coming back, some won't. But for one day, it's worth the spend.

That's all I'm saying. Great discussion as always, hope we can continue it offline.

HowieSPM Thanks for stopping by, Howie. Yes, CFOs and CEOs like concrete numbers, which has always been a challenge for any communications or marketing execs forced to champion impressions. That's why seeing a story like this one today is so frustrating. We can measure so much more, show so much more biz value than ever before.

$120K can buy a lot for any brand. Or it can buy one BS promoted trend on the Twitter that half of users never even look at because they use an app like Tweetdeck. Oh, and don't forget about the large percentage of people who just set up a Twitter account and never go back. But by all means, let's add them to our impressions count.

If I was seeing those types of numbers as a CEO, I would be looking for a new CMO too. People are lazy. It's sad. The bigger question here is whose fault is it -- lazy communicators or Twitter for taking advantage of lazy communicators?