Good article which really made me think but it worries me that many of the people reading this will just use it as a justification to disengage with such an exciting development as social media. The main aim for social media in business is to build better relationships with your customer, it allows interaction from them instead of just putting your message out there and seeing if it sinks or swims. Now the customer can tell you what's wrong, if anything, or if they like it, share it with their friends. As we all know a friends recommendations is one of the strongest marketing tools out there.
Surely every forward thinking business has an obligation to fully integrate anything which helps make their customer and business interact more fully? This article is a bit too black and white and don't let anyone send you it as proof you shouldn't investigate the power of social media. As a modern marketer I believe it is extremely important that we utilise the full power of the marketing mix, especially when many of the digital elements require no initial investment over and above an eager and intelligent marketing team.

Anthony
www.socialmediachunks.com

How true that mass marketing is dead. With the advent of social media and the fields that we fill in such as interest and hobbies on our social media sites, it's no wonder that the ads that pop up on facebook and myspace are of interest to us. And I would say that it's going to stay this way for a long time to come. I do have a question, will marketing eventually return to the masses and abandon the individual. What makes me wonder this is since we are so focused on what we are already interested in, will we eventually tire of being targeted and want to know about products that can not be specifically targeted to us threw our profile information? it's something to think about.

Thanks for the Lift Summit conference notes!

RE: Myth number 10

How true - no matter how great your content is, it doesn't matter if the right people don't see it.

@wiredprworks

Thanks for the dose of reality about social media. It's difficult to gauge the value of investing time and/or money in social media. I agree wholeheartedly with #10 getting the right content in the right dosage to the right people is the biggest challenge.

Great article. However, must disagree with Myth 5.

Ethnic and lifestyle marketing is mainly about narrower targeting, a key (and statistically significant) predictor of marketing effectiveness.

While no one is at the mean, with well executed ethnic marketing programs (or better yet, “multicultural” programs) your commonalities are stronger, and the concentration around the “mean” is denser.

We've seen it for our clients, with Hispanic marketing constantly outperforming the more generic non-Hispanic efforts.

Better targeting drives relevancy and increases ROI. And this applies to social and “old” (antisocial?) media.

Manuel Delgado
Agua Marketing
@delgadoman

Finally, straight talk about a subject that gets bandied about in very casual terms. Very useful for my business right now. Not only is Mr. Belicove spot on, but I love his use of the words "butt load" in a business blog. Right on!

Thank God somebody has finally said it. Every blip on the radar screen becomes gospel and it just isn't true. Bravo Mikal! Thank you for bringing us all back down to earth. Keeping an open mind and remaining cutting edge is crucial to staying on top. However, many times, if you just look a little closer, you wil see the great wizard is not a wizard at all; just a nice little old man behind a curtain with a microphone and amplifier.

Love the article. These are interesting times. We will definately see variations on these myths as he months go by and social media evolves into various hybrids of communicating and selling. I know that unless you have a social media plan and hours to whittle down your targets, you can get nowhere fast.

Thanks for a great article.
@tonibirdsong

"Invest in heavy users; do not radically alter blockbuster resource allocation or product portfolio management strategies to chase the long tail. A few winners will still go a long way--probably even further than before."

This is so wrong I should sue you for trying to tell me it's true.

This might be the worst article about social media I've ever read. Barely any of these "myths" even pertain to social media and some of them aren't even myths...wow.

Also anyone who thinks you can "create" viral marketing probably doesn't know much about marketing either.

Social media is the best place to create new customers by building relationship.

I must remember these myths so I don't get taken with so much social media marketing. I indulge in it a bit but have not been successful. Mind you my preoccupation is not into making money although that is what I write on a lot. I just want to help spread what I learn to others and drive traffic to my three sites.

Evelyn Guzman

Thanks, Mikal, for the insightful post. This is one of the best social media articles that I have read. You really got me on item number 10: content is king and it's all there is to it!

Keep those neat articles coming!

thanks for validating those myths! I hear new ones every day, especially about social media. In reaction, I share this article on Marketing is Like Making a Good Movie: http://www.allisonbliss.com/email10.htm. It's still all about knowing one's audience, isn't it?

I attended a presentation given by Eric Bradlow from the Wharton Interactive Media Initiative (WIMI) a few months back. The top 10 format above is interesting, but the data and analysis they've pulled together from which the Top 10 came are beyond impressive. Nice to see real analysis for a change, as opposed to the fluff that passes for analysis these days. Check out WIMI if you get the chance.

Best article to come out of a top blog in a very long time.

best,
Chris O.
@ReferralKey

Number 10 is bang on. Great content getting crawled may have value over time but a push of "great content" through strategic channels is immediate and does create significant numbers of backlink opportunities.

Thanks for the insight.