Hello, marketers, I'm Social Media.  Look at your traditional marketing; now back to me; now back at your traditional marketing; now back to me. 

How's your traditional marketing looking?  Time spent watching TV at home rose just 0.6 percent in the first quarter and newspaper circulation is down 5% after a 10.6% plunge a year ago. Meanwhile, traffic to Facebook is up 60% this year.  

Now look at your television and print budgets. Better put on sunglasses or all those zeros and commas may blind you! Now look at your social media budget — I'll wait while you find a magnifying glass. Now back to your television budget; now back to my budget.

Can your traditional advertising cut costs like me? Can it reach 150,000 with 98% positive sentiment at no cost like me? Can it cause 4.8M people to seek it out rather than be ignored as the DVR fast-forwards? Does it empower your employees?

Sadly, your traditional marketing isn’t me, but if it stopped focusing on itself . . . well, it still wouldn't be me. Why? Because consumers trust me (or at least they trust each other within social media) more than they trust your traditional marketing. They trust ratings and reviews, and they trust blog posts and status updates of the people they know.  Your TV ads? They're on the sidelines while I'm on the field giving my all every play to earn trust.

Look down, back up, where are you? You’re on Facebook, and why shouldn't you be since that's where everyone else is? How many friends does your brand have? And how differentiated is your brand on Facebook?

What’s in your hand, back at me. I have it! It’s a smartphone, and the number of those handy little devices is growing rapidly. As more people carry smartphones, do you know what that means? More me: Mobile Facebook users are far more active on Facebook than non-mobile users. In fact, access to Facebook via mobile browsers grew 112% in 12 months, while Twitter experienced a 347% jump.

Anything is possible when your marketing smells like social and not traditional.

I’m on a social media horse.

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The preceding blog post may be evidence I need more sleep.  Thanks to Old Spice and Isaiah Mustafa for the inspiration.