The 3 Stages of Social Media Marketing

Author:

Toby Murdock

Source:

Marketers are rushing to ramp up their social media marketing efforts. Despite the excitement, the bottom-line results from social media marketing are elusive. A recent SIIA study looked at marketers of software, a group on the leading edge of tech and social media adoption. Sixty percent of these very advanced marketers reported that less than 5 percent of their deals originated from social media marketing.

So how can the excitement and potential around social media marketing transfer into real business results for marketers? We must remember that social media marketing is new and still evolving. Marketers are charging into this brave new world, learning and iterating the model. Three stages of social media marketing have emerged: amateur, messenger, and publisher. It is only as marketers evolve to this third and most advanced stage...