Navigating the Social Media Maze
If you’ve been testing the waters of social media marketing lately, you are not alone. In a survey conducted by Constant Contact in fall 2011, more than eight in 10 small businesses reported using social media in their overall marketing programs, up from about seven in 10 just six months earlier. And if you are at least a bit unsure about this 21st Century marketing channel—what exactly it is, how it’s different from traditional media, how best to leverage it, what benefits it can actually deliver—you also have plenty of company.Assessing the social media programs of all types of businesses, large and small, Steve Goldner, senior director of social media at MediaWhiz, a digital media agency based in New York, estimates just five percent represent real business value, and 95 percent are wasted effort.