Social Media and Advertising. Friends or Foes

Yesterday as sometimes happens, I found myself participating in not one but two separate business conferences, and interestingly I was asked virtually the same question came up at both events. Specifically if advertising was still valuable now that social media marketing was continuing to play such a powerful role?

It's a great question and the answer lies in the fact that social media is as we all know, about engagement and forming networks of like minded individuals with a common interest, passion, problem or need. Advertising on the other hand is all about mass marketing and getting your message out to a wide group.

The problem is this. Advertising works by increasing the level of awareness of you, your brand or business generically and reinforces the relationship you have with your market if you have one. If you don't, it reinforces that as well.

In other words it will be like a blank billboard with little value if the connection is not already there to support it.

This fact was made clear to me several years ago when I had just taken over as product manager of some major pharmaceutical brands and on doing a review of past spending, I found that my predecessor had been poring in a half a million dollars a year to a specific medical journal despite the fact that the product appeared to be receiving little or no benefit from it.

on doing a little research with a group of doctors, I found that they all agreed that if they were not using a product then just seeing ads of it in the magazine would have no effect. In short, no relationship equals no sale.

Interestingly when I cancelled the remainder of those ads, I was able to redirect those funds back into an innovative program designed to give the doctors exposure to using the medicine in a specific group of patients, as a basis for (wait for it) forming a relationship. Result millions of dollars increased revenue that year.

So yes advertising can and is still an effective option today, but needs to be properly applied when there is already an existing relationship, to remind people of that relationship.

Hope this sheds some light on this issue. Please let me know your thoughts a s well.
And until next time, good luck and good marketing.

Daniele.