Working in the Denver Internet marketing industry over the course of the past year, we've all heard far too much about the amazing potential of social media marketing (SMM). We've listened to the myriad reasons why it should be an essential component of our integrated search engine marketing (SEM) campaigns. Still, for as much as we've all heard, very few of us have taken the time to answer the most important question: Why? Why should you integrate SMM into your SEM campaigns?
Today, the push to integrate social media marketing into our SEM efforts is only gaining momentum as social networking sites like MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, Del.icio.us, Digg, Flickr and many others continue to gain users and popularity. Of course, we all know that SMM can help us somehow. But how exactly? Oftentimes, it seems like more of a bandwagon tactic, especially when clients say, "We want some sort of social media marketing." When asked why, the majority simply state, "Because our competitors are doing it." Some even reply with more of a blanket statement, stating "Because everyone else is doing it."
Every time I hear clients say this, I think of an adage my mother used to tell me when I was a child. Each time I wanted to do something just because it was popular, she'd ask "Would you jump off a bridge if everyone else was doing it?"