“It seems we're always in transition and that it's more about trends than it is about what's meaningful.” – Marlee Matlin

That insightful quote may well sum up how a lot of marketing people are feeling in today’s cross-channel reality. It seems to me that in my lifetime so much has been in transition and I’m often feeling nostalgia for a world which may never have actually existed. After all, change is the only constant.

Those of us in social media have to be more sensitive to this and move toward being facilitators rather than evangelists. It’s time to stop promising marketers a place in heaven and start showing them the path to get somewhere.
A new report from rocketcomms.net suggests (as have others) that marketers are indeed struggling with social media and the multiple channels they now have to deal with. Only 21% of those surveyed rated social media as “very effective” in brand building and only 17% gave it a “very effective” rating for driving sales leads.

Traditional tactics still rule: in search of the numbers

Not surprisingly, the numbers for more traditional online tactics look a lot different. SEO with 32%, PPC at 28% and email marketing with 22% were rated “very effective” for building brand. While PPC at 33%, SEO with 28% and email marketing at 21% were rated most effective for driving sales.

Even so, the report found that social media is being used by many marketers. 94% of companies in the survey are using it as part of their strategy with 63% reporting they use it for brand building.

So where are they doing this brand building? 61% responded they are on Facebook or LinkedIn while Twitter is a close second with 54% and 23% are using Foursquare to promote their brands.

It’s natural for us to cling to traditional methods and channels when things change. It’s even practical when you consider that social media marketing still has a way to go before marketers know how to deliver the kind of reporting the C-suite not only wants, but damn well deserves if we expect them to embrace social media. Managers are not Luddites, but they do have a healthy sense of caution when they read a lot of hype and don’t see the numbers they can use to back up their efforts.

Right now everyone has a shovel and is trying to dig the Panama Canal by themselves. Or to put it another way, remember that scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail? You know, the one about building a castle on a swamp and how the first three fell in, but the fourth one stayed up? We’ve been doing that online as marketers for too long and that is one thing which has to change ASAP.

Cross-channel animals in the marketing jungle

The world is multi-channel and consumers are cross-channel animals – they leap from channel to channel with the ease of Orangutans. If your strategy is to try and follow them with a net and hope to catch them when they land, well you’re bananas.

There are two realities in today’s marketing jungle, the first is that you can’t be everywhere and the second is that the consumer doesn’t care if you can’t be – they expect you to be wherever they are on whatever channel they happen to be on at the time.

The only sane solution is for all marketers to accept it’s a multi-channel world and then get with IT and senior management to consider what infrastructure is in place to accommodate this reality. The odds are that you have issues and continuing to build out from your current infrastructure may be just like that castle on the swamp.

There are people with the expertise out there to help you build on a better foundation and be able to leverage this new marketing reality for enhanced ROI. Take a deep breath, sit back and take a good look around. There are no quick fixes, but a little thought, planning and the right partner will keep your castles on firmer footing.