Social media marketing should sit alongside traditional marketing techniques not replace them

In this Cambridge Network article, "Is using cheap social media a cop-out for marketers?", Simon Carter from Fujitsu eloquently makes the point that leaping from product concept to social media marketing misses out critical steps in the marketing process:

Junior Brand Managers think social media is a great way of getting their message out to a wider audience at virtually no cost. The problem is that it’s cheap churn and too often, the stuff we as marketers are taught in the classroom about targeting; about the right message; about good creative and the proposition and so on, are forgotten.”

I couldn't agree more: SOOO many times I have seen the splurge to social media when the product and business proposition is poorly thought out.

The whole Agile development movement with its iterative development enables (I won't say encourages!) the 'chuck it out and see what happens and we'll respond quickly' approach.

Marketers need to stop and think and go back to the basics before opening their mouths and preaching something that hasn't been thought through.

Stopping and thinking logically (with an external perspective) is a lot of what I do for my clients: I call it market analysis and product roadmapping.