It’s funny to me that people are still asking whether social media is viable for business.
Obviously, the advertising industry picked up on blogs and social media pretty early on and revenue streams based on advertising has matured quite rapidly. And like with anything on the web, the internet marketing crowd, with their usual approach, moved into the social media space.
But for the most part businesses that offer services are only beginning to scratch the surface of how to use social media to create a space in the market and grow their business. And with the constant growth and massive potential blogging and social networking provide, it’s pretty obvious that social marketing is anything but a fad.
Just think about it for a moment. What’s one constant of marketing – that people will forever be looking for ways to solve the problems they face. Getting married and want to find the perfect wedding planner? You can likely find her (or him) blogging. Traveling for the first time to Fort Collins, Colorado? You’ll probably want to comfortable hotel. Want to increase your business profits 50% over the next 12 months? There’s a business advisor (who I happen to know personally) who can likely help you do it (just give him a call or shoot him an email).
You see, publishing to a blog can establish your expertise in the area you’re an expert in. Your blog serves as a platform for sharing what you know. And when you share what you know with the people who need what you know, you’re creating a space for yourself in the market.
But the blog lets you go even further. Better than creating a market, your blog lets you create a community. Through conversations in the comment box and an open line of communication, your blog, and hence your business service, can become vitally important to your reader’s success. In other words, you can find your own niche within the market.
And here I’m talking only about blogging. Add in relationships in Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. Combine that with all the social bookmarking and social sharing sites that allow for the spread of your excellent content and what you have is an entire social marketing platform based in conversation and relationship.
You see, it’s relationship that drive the market. Always has and it always will. Things got a little sidetracked as we moved from the quaint neighborhood drugstore and small-town lumber yard to the CVS and Home Depot monopolies. We gained price savings, but what we lost was the relationship.
Social media is bringing back the relationship into business. This is one of the reasons why I feel social media has exploded. Consumers can once again have control over the marketplace by choosing who they want to be in relationship with. And it’s why I strong feel that social marketing is not at all a fad. It’s here to stay. It’ll evolve, just as the internet always does. But the web based on individual control and relationship-driven services will continue to prosper.
The the only question remains is how are you using social media to increase your business? And if you’re not, why not( Maybe a call to that business growth advisor I spoke of would be a good idea)?
Let’s talk about it.
(note: image from kalandrakas on Flickr, 
some rights reserved)
Totally agree.
Great post. However, Social Media requires a decent strategy to maximize it’s potential.
I don’t think it’s a fad, but I sometimes wonder if at some point people are going to start looking at their watches and realizing how much time they are spending on social media and how much time they aren’t spending with their friends, family, outdoors, etc. I could see social media evolving to a point where it takes up less of our time, but I have no idea how, when or if that will ever happen.
I don’t think everyone has picked it up early. I was at the Blogwell event and the big 8 companies that participated were shouting…
“you should check out this thing called a blog it’s cool!”
If the foundation of business is relationships then social media isn’t going anywhere.
The true value is networking and the best tool I’ve found is Twitter. I’ve met so many people that I would never have had to opportunity to meet in person. This creates business opportunities.
Now if someone could just tell social media that my hours are from 9-5 and not 24/7 – that would be great!
I definitely agree that while it is nice that some socialization has been allowed to flourish through blogs there is some concern about how far into the depths it will go. George is right to worry about the lack of physical human interactions. I believe that Social Media as we know it will continue to climb, but should we be wary of abusing it for fear of loosing touch?
The longer I do business online, the more I realize that networking is everything. Relationships are paramount to success, even if those relationships are between sites and media sources rather than between human beings. Yep, relationships are essential to success.
I completely see the value of all this and I agree that it is now possible to build relationships with people so easily and everywhere. I just need s full time PA now in order to help me with my work so I can be online more!!
Excellent one. Social marketing has got immense potential If the strategies are rightly implemented.
Dawud-
Great post. I know to us, it seems like social networking, social media, et al, have been around forever and are well known, but so many of my clients are still clueless. So I think we’ll see a huge increase in adoption across the board (just like websites; no one had one in 1994 or even 2000, but now who are you without one?).
I can’t wait. I love it.
Trying to jump on this myself. But I agree with some comments. People spend way too much time on Social Media and I have no idea if that will wane. But at the moment it’s not. So lets jump on it!
Great post. I do believe there are some great benefits from it but it is also hard work. There are more and more SM programs coming out and it’s getting had to follow.
I can’t tell you how many hits I get from facebook and twitter. It’s fantastic.
Nice and informative post, Dawud. Well, the social marketing has been helped me a lot and I definitely believed that it isn’t a fad at all!
Come to think of it, I always thought social media would eventually be useless for marketing. Now I don’t know why it is.
“Social media is bringing back the relationship into business.” This sentence changed my perspective on social media and social marketing as a whole.
I totally agree. Nice post. Cheers.
Good advice. Anyone who hasn’t already jumped on digital marketing needs to.
Speaking as Social Media Newbie, I can totally see its potential, but I’m daunted by the shere number of social media platforms out there…twitter, Digg, Delicious, Reddit, facebook….the list goes on.
I’ve just put the Addthis button on my website but I’ve got a sinking feeling that I’m going to have to spend at least half a year staring at screens like I used to do with ebay, facebook, and apple’s ichat when they first came out.
But the difference is, that this is potentially building those all important backlinks as well as traffic. That’s why I’m going to persevere with it all.
Good post – thanks!
I think that every company should have a blog – lets face it there is no need not to with word press. Skin it, link it to your site, start telling the world what you’re doing and why they should want to work with you. It’s the cheapest marketing tool around and reaches the most people. How can you lose?
But how much is too much social media? How much sharing is too much? Is there a limit to putting your information online and in too many places? If you are running your own business, a lot of what you put online is personal information, right?
Social media is bringing back the relationship into business. This is one of the reasons why I feel social media has exploded. Consumers can once again have control over the marketplace by choosing who they want to be in relationship with. And it’s why I strong feel that social marketing is not at all a fad. It’s here to stay. It’ll evolve, just as the internet always does. But the web based on individual control and relationship-driven services will continue to prosper.
No it isn’t a fad and it will become bigger and bigger within the next 5-10 years!
I agree with Rubber Soul – I am new to social media and there are so many choices.
I see the potential but it’s taking a lot of time learning each site and figuring out how best to use it.
The potential is there, though.
SEO and social media are quickly becoming almost essential for new bloggers to gain visibility.
I personally enjoy the social aspect of blogging even more that the money I make from doing so and I believe that it shows in the articles I write and therefore I the size of the community I’ll likely be building.
I recently graduated college and started interning for a PR/Advertising Agency in Chicago.
I thought I was pretty smart when it came to social media. (After all, Facebook started my freshman year of college.)
To my surprise, it turns out that I really know very little. I’m having fun learning more about it every day.
I feel that I’m coming into this world of pr and marketing at just the right time, because I’m in the same boat as a lot of the people I work with. The industry is changing, and it’s time to learn.
I believe that social marketing is one of the effective tools on the Internet today. It’s like you’re going to parties or meeting new people or creating new friends and business acquaintances so that you could share your ideas. With social networking sites, you also meet people. These sites are exciting places where you can get to meet a lot of people from different parts of the world–without having to don a dress and ride a car or plane. Social marketing is nice and fun.
Well, I do know that social networking is good for business, but still in my business I still use seo for online marketing.
social marketing is power of marketing. marketing with social marketing can be multiply
So many people still saying that social media traffic is not giving any profit compared to search engine traffic. But, getting good traffic and links from social media sites will definitely help for search engine results.
Great post. Social media is the best place to make business friends and gain knowledge and tips from them. I like it.
Agree completely. However it will depend on the blogger’s social marketing choice. At the moment the front runner is Twitter. That’s where all the noise is coming from.
Thats a great a point, and I think the relationship growth is more with the social network websites..
a good example would be with our new president while he was a candidate, with his twitter account, you can actually see what he was thinking or doing in real time, which we have never ever experienced in the history
I think that after seeing how the White House website is being changed to incorporate Social Media and how the President is using Social Media to help inform the people, people will begin to see how effective and lasting Social Media really is.
Good points! Social marketing can seem faddish, particularly to newcomers, who don’t always understand its importance.
When you work offline so much, whatever you find online can seem strange, new and certain to change. Social marketing may change, but it won’t ever go away.
You’re right. Many people underestimate about the benefit of social media. But I think it’s a good alternative to promote our business.
No, I do not think it is. Social marketing is here to stay and people should take advantage of it.
I have done some investigating into social marketing. So far, I keep it to Squidoo, HubPages, and mybloglog. I do find that these bring visitors, but it also creates some inbound link juice which might even be a better side benefit to bring you natural google search results.
actually any tips for blogger master I tried…and mybloglog is one of the smart social marketing…I have many visitor from it.
I think that after seeing how the White House website is being changed to incorporate Social Media and how the President is using Social Media to help inform the people,
a good example would be with our new president while he was a candidate, with his twitter account, you can actually see what he was thinking or doing in real time, which we have never ever experienced in the history
SEO and social media are quickly becoming almost essential for new bloggers to gain visibility.
Great post. Social media is the best place to make business friends and gain knowledge and tips from them. I like it.
Great point. No matter how you interact and build relationship with customers and partners, it will benefit you in one way or another.
Social media just makes it easier to do it online and engage more people at the same time.
So yes, it is NOT a fad.
This post has actually woken me up a bit. I’ve been fighting the social marketing aspect of doing business, hoping to just make it with a static site. Thank you for this post!
I often wonder when and where the fad ends and stategic oppourtunites of social marketing starts. By me sitting here posting this reply am I part of the fad or an oppourunity to “connect and build a relationship” and who is this relationship with? The World? They guy in the cubical next to me? The housewife killing time waiting for her husband to get home from his social marketing job? Everyone seems to be caught up on making social media a must in marketing and so main stream that it appears to become a fad by sheer Darwinism. Have I become another web click counting for someone’s bank account? I guess relationships to me have never been a fad and reconnecting to people is important in business and life.
However what kind of relationship can you expect to get back, how do you make text a relationship-is it really as simple as hitting the reply button? It makes me question which one is really the fad: social marketing or the relationship that is suppose to result from it. What we are calling a fad?
Just look at the various links on this page-buy this, click here to link to that, call me to get this, relationships you say?
Yeah I understand the consumer is the reader and the results are to get as many views to ultimately profit from but why not just say it instead of calling it a relationship and then credit it to a successful social marketing campaign.
Perhaps the fad is not social marketing but how we are using it to redfine relationships. In the end it’s how you create revenue for and from your site, for and from your blog but don’t tell me it’s about relationships-for that I pick up book from Dr. Ruth.
Have we run out of ways to disguise what marketing is really about? Like any internet based media-the next big “must do” fad is being uploaded as we speak. I guess in the end it’s all relative-you get what you want out of it-personally I want nothing out of social marketing. I’ll stick to meeting people face to face creating relationships not writing about them.
Enjoy the fad, social marketing, whatever name you want to give today just know the more you attempt to make it a creditable stream for marketing the more you create the fad. **if you’d like to read my blogg click here
kidding.
Great post. Social media is the best place to make business friends and gain knowledge and tips from them. I like it.
I agree you. It was a great post.Social Marketing” has been around as long as man could speak. It’s just word of mouth. But now thanks to technology and advances in the Internet we have multiple ways to provide that word of mouth.I think certain elements of social marketing are very “fad” and will become more and more redundant over time.
“Social media is bringing back the relationship into business” – this is true. Many business tends to be indifferent to their consumers. When they should instead try to know what their consumers feel about their brand. Long term marketing strategies must involve building up relationship and trust among consumers.
SEO and social media are quickly becoming almost essential for new bloggers to gain visibility.
One of the things I wonder about though is whether people get that social media participation can actually be a problem. Every time you create a piece of content in a social media site (especially one that has higher PageRank than your own) you are essentially creating competition for your own site. And most people at some point need people to come to their site: to read, buy something, and just to create a mailing list …
social media marketing, like most things get ignored, people just get use to it and then once they know its an ad just ignore it
Social media marketing is a essential part of any SEO campaign specially when your keywords are not ranking high you can have visitors through social media.
One of the things I wonder about though is whether people get that social media participation can actually be a problem. Every time you create a piece of content in a social media site (especially one that has higher PageRank than your own) you are essentially creating competition for your own site. And most people at some point need people to come to their site: to read, buy something, and just to create a mailing list
social media marketing, like most things get ignored, people just get use to it and then once they know its an ad just ignore it
l’m happy to see social media reintroducing “relationship” into business after their break up. Facebook may be a fad, but the principles they use to help businesses grow are not!
Breaking into social media to sell something is very difficult since it’s nearly impossible to establish a relationship or presence when everyone knows there is an ulterior motive. It’s best to seek out niche areas where you can interact and advertise a product in a natural way.
social media marketing, like most things get ignored, people just get use to it and then once they know its an ad just ignore it,thanks for sharing the post.
I love this post. people who think social marketing is seriously in denial!It could not be stopped and it continues to grow.
Well said! I firmly believe that relationships are what is driving today’s social media and these relationships are what is keeping it here, for a while at least.
Facebook and Twitter make the world seem like a smaller place – they add a “personal touch” to an ever-changing environment.
Great post. Social media is the best place to make business friends and gain knowledge and tips from them. I really like it,thanks for sharing the post.
Well writen post! I think I’m the only person here not using social media to promote a website. Thanks for making me think about that once again!
Social media is indeed the opportunity for advertisers. A major social media network will cover many aspects. Let’s take Facebook for example.Customer communication: is great for engaging people who like the brand advertised( they will share their opinion, participate in contest).Brand exposure:you can use the ad platform or hire a consultant (a Facebook one) to help you grow the brand presence.Traffic to your site: the traffic is pretty good (share buttons and counters), but the number of unique visitors isn’t that great.SEO is maybe the weak spot for Facebook.Not worth the time expenditure.
I completely agree with you, I got most of my hits from a Facebook page, and I am making a twitter soon.
Even if it’s a fad, that is not a reason not to use it in your marketing strategy. Trying to predict what is going to happen in the future is not only hard, it’s a waste of time.
I think that you always have to focus of what is useful at this moment. Be flexible, get inspired by others, and don’t be afraid of making mistakes.
Social media is definitely not a fad. Still, unfortunately, many marketers don’t fully understand how to use it effectively.
Social Media certainly is here to stay, and should be used in your marketing efforts, not solely, but in the mix of the entire strategy. A well balanced strategy is what is going to get you the results needed for success.
Social Media is a fad especially for new businesses. If you use it wisely and effectively, then you’ll probably be successful in your campaign. Social media is a good strategy in these days considering that the internet is a big medium for advertising and socialising.
I believe that social media is one of the important factor in business. Look. We are not living in a primitive era. Every moves that we make nowadays involves social media and other means of digital communication. How can you gain profit when you don’t advertise your product? And we all know that social media is one of the effective way to make your product well-known to everyone. Social media, indeed, gives us the opportunity to look at the other aspect of life.
Social media is indeed the opportunity for advertisers. A major social media network will cover many aspects. Let’s take Facebook for example.Customer communication: is great for engaging people who like the brand advertised( they will share their opinion, participate in contest).Brand exposure:you can use the ad platform or hire a consultant (a Facebook one) to help you grow the brand presence.Traffic to your site: the traffic is pretty good (share buttons and counters), but the number of unique visitors isn’t that great.SEO is maybe the weak spot for Facebook.Not worth the time expenditure.
Like many others have said, using social media EFFECTIVELY is very different from just using it.. and those companies who think it doesn’t work are the ones who don’t know how to utilize it to its full potential. Good post.
Not a fad at all! Social marketing is just in its infancy. I do reporting for a couple of client’s social marketing campaigns. I can see the additional revenue it’s bringing in.
Social media is going through the roof. Companies are on Facebook getting feedback from the customers. It certainly give a little more control back to the consumer.
Social Media is not a fad, it’s a whole new way to interact with your consumers, that we have never seen before. There are no rules, not even guidlines, in how to use Social Media. Having the currage to try and fail is good, but may cost more than you expect.
It sure isn’t a fad, but I wonder how many likes or followers you need to have before you really start to get profit from Social Media. It is after all very time consuming.
Oh well this story is really amazing or I may say interesting, thanks for sharing such a nice post.
Great read. It’s true. There are great positives to social media even with the hard work that has to be put into it.
To be frank Social Marketing never worked for me and I do not believe in it now.
This is really innovative and a new idea, I like this concept of protest and the way it is carried out in so light and cool manner. its really wonderful.
Remarkable Put up, i got being reading this blogs recent years days to weeks but presently i’ve spent the time to thank you towards related information you’re the one showing around.
Agree. Anything which is part and parcel of real, grass roots human interaction has ultimate power. We tend to forget (on the weird-world-wide-web) that the same old feel good social basics apply.
Social media invades the business world.Most of the owners prefer to advertise their site using different tool.It can be the use of SEO and SEM.
I am new to this practice and I are struggling given promotion and advertising of your site. Thank you for useful information on social media, as I understand them future
Social media will be around for a long time because it is such a great tool for connecting with customers and creating brand awareness. It is an important part of any marketing strategy.
Social media marketing is definitely not a passing craze. I strongly believe it is still up and coming and more people will realise its importance.
I agree with your article, and social media is certainly here to stay. So many people rely and use it everyday, I don’t see how it could go out of the picture any time soon!
Social Media is something we all should seriously consider, as we’re all aiming for the most exposure we can get for our websites. So thank you for your post, I found it very informative.
Social Marketing has been around since the first business transaction took place. Business has always used connections. Some businesses more than others.
Today we just have new tools for social marketing. How you use these tools will determine the success. If you are a business consultant and you have thousands of non-business owners in your network then what is the point?
Social media is a very source of income.It gives happiness and bucks.I am proud to be in line in internet marketing.
Social marketing isn’t just about having accounts on various social sites: twitter, facebook…etc. It’s also important how you manage those accounts, and the “friends” you gain. Social marketing works, but you need to be active, in order to be effective.
I couldn’t agree more. Your point that social media has brought personal relationships back to the business world is right on the money. I think consumers and sales professionals alike love the interactiveness that social media provides both in the B2C and B2B realms. I definitely think it’s here to stay and I’m looking forward to seeing how it evolves and changes in the coming years.
I think the sheer volume of responses you have had to this blog, and the term over which they have occurred simply reinforces your point. Social marketing is driving huge business. And it is constantly changing, I find it hard to keep up.
I loved this blog for the simple reason, which is:
Way of thinking of the person and the level of ethical awareness enjoying greater.
Although I am twice in English insisted on reading your articles because they add to the intellectual something new.
Thank you
It’s been so long since social marketing had paved it’s way as a reliable source of information. As we all know, social media became very powerful nowadays. Just imagine the time we spent surfing in the internet today? For, social marketing is not a fad. It will not diminish, only that more innovations and improvements well come as the years go by. Come to think of it, everything can be found just next to our table where our PC can be found. Just surf, and GOT it. So easy.
Social marketing can be applied to promote your product.It can be help for us.
It is nice that some socialization has been allowed to flourish through blogs there is some concern about how far into the depths it will go. George is right to worry about the lack of physical human interactions.
I agree with Dan. It’s not about quantity, it’s how you deal with your social networks presence. It takes time and effort!
I think large organisations in particular have a problem understand that they don’t get to control the message. They fear social media.
This article is amazing, thanks for posting this. Social Marketing is one of the best way to earn this days. This article helps a lot.
No need to tell big business that social media is a fad. Business will go where the money is.
I think a lot of businesses are discovering that social media can not only be a cheaper way to advertise but it is an opportunity to learn from their clients, directly from their own clients.
No need for expensive studies or second hand testimonials. Go directly to where the potential clients “live”, so to speak, and you will have an information gold mine on your hands!
To me it is not about the time other people are spending on social networking. I am happy about that. It’s the time I have to put into social marketing. There are so many different avenues. It is true that I only need a small portion of the pie to succeed, but I am wondering in what direction will it go. There seems to be a new site popping up every day, but most don’t stay long and the big boys win in the end. If I could have seen the future I would have started blogging 3 years ago and built up my PR so people could find me on a gogle search. It’s here for now but really there is no telling where we are going.
social media is more than fad, it’s a place where relationship gets stronger as well as create market for products and services. consumers play a big role for business on social media where they want to choose facility and control only with those who is providing good services.
Social media is the key to success for all online business now days. If you want that people should know you and your business, participate actively in social media. Nice post indeed. 🙂
I’ve been a little hesitant with social media networking. I’m just not sure I have the time to dedicate to it to make it viable.
Amazing article and blog on social marketing. I am new to website design and SEO and thanks to your article I am learning all the good habits to a successful business. Thank you again!
I’m agree with you Dan. It’s not about quantity, it’s how you deal with your social networks presence. It takes time and effort! I worked a lot to have a nice presence on social networks, but now i recive a lot of trafic and I like it a lot
I loved this blog for the simple reason, which is:
Way of thinking of the person and the level of ethical awareness enjoying greater.
Although I am twice in English insisted on reading your articles because they add to the intellectual something new.
Thank you
Being one of the few people left who doesn’t utilize social media such as twitter or facebook for either personal or business purposes it’s difficult for me to grasp how the medium of social media could be used to market my small business. I’d like to hear from Dawud and others here on DMiracle what social media mediums are best to utilize for search engine optimization purposes (i.e. passing link juice) and what ways social media offers to drive traffic to other small business owners websites. Also, do you think social media could help a law related business, or is social media best suited for niches that the younger generation is interested in. Thanks for your insightful post and I look forward to hearing from others. – Jessica
social media marketing makes revolution in the history of small business and large enterprises as well. Now there is no doubt in social media value towards business.
regards
rabia
Social media is very powerful tool for many businesses however unfortunately if one to do it correctly it is more or less full time job. Many large companies do have full time person just posting on facebook and tweting all day long… well I wish I would have the time for it.
social media serves as a relatively inexpensive platform for organizations to implement marketing campaigns. With emergence of channels like Twitter, the barrier to entry in social media is greatly reduced.
Social marketing isn’t just about having accounts on various social sites: twitter, facebook…etc. It’s also important how you manage those accounts, and the “friends” you gain. Social marketing works, but you need to be active, in order to be effective.
I’m working hard to utilize social marketing for my photo business. Should have a younger and more internet soically savvy intern to help with some of the posts soon.
Hi,
I treasured to drop a quick note of appreciation to express my thanks.Really nice post.
Regards,
Sana
i would like to add one more tips for blog promotion that is guest Blogging. Guest Blogging makes online presence and make a reputation that attracts visits.
I am still overwhelmed trying to learn all the methods of using social media to grow my business. My biggest struggle is measuring the true ROI of your online efforts. Many times, even if someone first sees you on the internet, they will say they found you in the phone book, etc.
So its tricky to know how well your efforts are paying off.
many Social media marketing is a essential part of any SEO campaign specially when your keywords are not ranking high you can have visitors through social media.dont bother about google,yahoo and bing
being a social media enthusiast, I feel, social media is the need of the hour and being socio friendly it seems to create an uphand on any business. more or less it acts as a tool and this tool is known as the word of mouth as termed in general marketing terms.
Social media is very usefull and it’s free publicity. You can easily send visitors to your website. this site uses twitter and facabook for that.
Well, I think social media marketing can work for many business owners but it won’t change the marketing game completly.
For most business owners it works well when it is added to their regular marketing.
I’ve found social marketing is completely hit and miss.
My FB page has 1300 fans and Twitter account around 3.5K (100K+ with re-tweets usually)
Sometimes can have a good campaign( I create iphone games) and sales go up 200% – 300%. Other times not a bean.
Both social marketing and the app store are fickle mistresses indeed
well i think now a days social media is playing a key role so after launching any new site people like to go for social marketing and its true. I believe you can boost your site alexa through social marketing in very little time 🙂
but there are two types of why ? two major ones, one is because of the cash , two because it is something that thus individual like.
This looks absolutely perfect. All these tiny details are made with lot of background knowledge. I like it a lot.
Well worth to read this article, thanks for sharing this information. With this article you offered me got a chance to know about this, anyway i say Great Article!
Now that Google+ has jumped on the bandwagon theres no stopping social. Its going to be interesting to see where it takes us in the next few years. Google plus is already beginning to make its ways in to the serps, all search results are gonna be personalized using google+ in a few years time
Nice post. Social is becomming more and influential. It can’t be ignored within any SEO strategy, even when your site isn’t even in a particularly social-orientated niche.
You’re spot on Dawud. Ever since I created a blog for the print design industry and a community around it, my business and positive feedback has improved 100%. Customers are engaging with the business and me personally and we’re all learning more about the industry at the same time. Win-win. The only negative about social media marketing is the extra work, to keep the dialogue going. But you’re putting this in with your customers day to day anyway, so its more than worth it. Thanks for sharing your view.
Great post! Social media playing a big role in the success of a long term business plans, it gives us a free platform for our web marketing. your views increased my knowledge. Thanks!
Not exactly sure I agree, social media is playing a huge role lately after everyone, well almost everyone took a dive in the SERPS
Social media is bringing back the relationship into business. This is one of the reasons why I feel social media has exploded. If done properly we can drive the visitors to our site.
Social media optimization explores the new methods of online marketing and sidelines the traditional methods of advertising and promotional strategies
I don’t think it’s fad, but many businesses just can’t use them. If social media is treated like a channel to sale, and not to build a relations with people they just doesn’t work. It’s like @Print Design Blog said SM can be use to dialoque with costumers, a way to share inspirations and ideas. Unfortunatly not many businesses work that way. Usually they post some products photos and ‘lol content’, and called this social media marketing.
When i see campaign made by Nike, Amnesty International, or Orbit i truly belive, that social media could change traditional marketing.