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Is 2011 The Year of the Social Media Bubble

August 28, 2010, 12:52 pm

by Eric Brown

Several camps are starting to chant that 2011 may well be the year of The Social Media Bubble. I would not proclaim to be able to predict the future be any means, but it sure seems more probable than not. While having little experience predicting the future, we have had an up close and personal relationship with the real estate bubble. Developing real estate used to be a pretty fun endeavor, however the past couple of years of operating our boutique apartment rental business in SE Michigan has had more challenges than we ever imagined. But as with all struggles, there has been a bright side, a bubble burst quickly trims out the weeds and the low hanging fruit.

Perhaps a Social Media Weeding is forthcoming,

2010 has been the year that many small and mid size businesses have taken the plunge, and embraced the throws of Social Media Marketing. With that nearly every unemployed straggler has hung out their Social Media Consultant shingle.

As reported in the Harvard Business Review,

"During the subprime bubble, banks and brokers sold one another bad debt -- debt that couldn't be made good on. Today, "social" media is trading in low-quality connections -- linkages that are unlikely to yield meaningful, lasting relationships."

Low Barrier to Entry

Whenever the barrier to entry is low, to non existent, pitfalls loom. While the real estate bubble happened due to a multitude of reasons, whenever someone can sell a condo several times before the builder finished construction, and each selling party profits, all is well and good until the market falls off. It then becomes musical chairs and the last person standing is holding the bag. When profit occurs absent anyone really doing anything or adding any value, a Weed and Trim typically follows. Problem is, we aren't very adept at history or awareness.

Paneria Bread is My Office

Nothing against the Nomads or Entrepreneurs, we all started somewhere, but when your only cost of business or overhead is your laptop, lots of crazies are suddenly internet marketers and social media marketers. And, by all means, some of this lot are pretty smart, however once the check writers, the business owners start requiring Results, many of these Cast of Social Media Characters will evaporate as quickly as they spawned.

What is the Correction

Results, or lack there of will lead the correction. Business isn't as complicated as we try to make it. If you are doing internet marketing or social media marketing for your client, and they aren't selling more stuff, you may well get fired, as you should. Marketing is and has always been about selling more stuff to more people for more money.

Engagement, Conversation, Connections and all of the buzz words of today won't cut it if sales leads don't increase. The truth is, Social Media Marketing is so much more than a facebook page and a twitter account, and there are lots of businesses and agencies doing a stealer job, however, many are not, and it seems that the honeymoon may be coming to a close for those that lack the experience of delivering a real and measurable result.

Are your clients selling more stuff from your Social Media Marketing Campaigns?

We would love to hear your feedback.

You can connect with Eric on twitter or at The Urbane Way,

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