Advertising TechnologySocial Media & Influencer Marketing

Social Media Advertising is a Failure

When I got into traditional media marketing, I was immediately pulled into what could be accomplished with data. Data directed our testing and verbiage in direct marketing and advertising, gave us accurate reporting and measurement, and provided us with a much clearer picture of who they were, what they wanted, where they were, where they wanted and how they wanted it.

Campaigns were very complex combinations of long-form letters, post cards, newspaper advertisements, voice calls, etc., etc. Broadcast, newspaper and direct mail campaigns were expensive, so it required sophisticated tools and finite measurement to convert people into customers without irritating them or wasting money.

Social media advertising isn’t expensive. It’s cheap. And because it’s cheap, it’s absolutely terrible. It’s simple. And it’s stupid… just keep spending money and pop up an ad over and over and over. Not enough leads? More ads. Sure – you can do some geographic and demographic targeting but that’s it. The strategy is still two dimensions… spend money, get clicks.

Outside vendors of marketing automation systems have sophisticated lead scoring to help accelerate and improve the opportunity to target and acquire leads, but it still comes down to the same two dimensions within the social media platform… spend more money, get more clicks.

Twitter and Facebook and the rest of the platforms should absolutely be ashamed. Facebook even admits they’re pulling more business conversation out of the stream to force more businesses into spending more money on advertising… to get more clicks.

This is the reality of what social media advertising has evolved into? It’s just banner advertising from 20 years ago? We had more options working with a newspaper!

I can’t believe, at the 10 year anniversary of Facebook, this is all they’ve come up with. Facebook has transformed the way that the world engages with each other… but scrapes the bottom of the barrel with how businesses are able to engage intelligently with people.

Spend. Click.

Facebook is a wild, rushing, stream of big data with life events that have happened, are happening, or are about to happen. Within the billions of status updates, there are hidden treasures of life changes and opportunities that cry for businesses to tap into. If the right tools existed, businesses could reach the right person at the right time with virtually no intrusion.

Spend. Click.

As businesses, we’re forced to utilize third party tools to listen in real-time and then, with limited tools, try to develop promotions, contests, loyalty systems, etc. all OUTSIDE the firewalls of these social media giants.

Spend. Click.

We’re forced to compete with Facebook and try and lure the prospect back to our sites and stores where we DO have sophisticated tools for multi-channel and multi-step drip and triggered marketing campaigns that we know work and work well! But Facebook hides behind widgets and limited integration capabilities so we could never discover these opportunities to engage with our prospects and customers deeper.

Spend. Click.

Social Media Advertising sucks. Consumers want to be treated better by the brands, the products and the services that they want to do business with. Companies want to have access to complex data and sophisticated tools that help them engage more effectively. On Facebook, you can’t even differentiate the engagement between your customers and your prospects! The Facebook wall is planted squarely in between the two – thwarting any effort that may encroach on their strategy…

Spend. Click.

Seriously. You can do better. Consumers deserve better. Businesses would love better.

Douglas Karr

Douglas Karr is CMO of OpenINSIGHTS and the founder of the Martech Zone. Douglas has helped dozens of successful MarTech startups, has assisted in the due diligence of over $5 bil in Martech acquisitions and investments, and continues to assist companies in implementing and automating their sales and marketing strategies. Douglas is an internationally recognized digital transformation and MarTech expert and speaker. Douglas is also a published author of a Dummie's guide and a business leadership book.

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