Is Social Networking A Waste Of Time?

My friend and colleague, copywriting expert, Bob Bly, has an intersting discussion about social media going on on his blog. I chimmed in and it occured to me to comment about this topic on my own blog as well.

To check out the full article and discussion, visit: http://bly.com/blog/

However, in a nutshell, one of the commenters mentioned that "...by a direct response marketer’s metrics, social media is a waste of time..." and "...social networking is simply real world interpersonal networking digitized. You wouldn’t try to apply direct marketing practices to a business networking event, and you wouldn’t expect to launch a marketing campaign with a “Chamber of Commerce Business Mixer Strategy...”

Good, valid points, however, I disagree somewhat. And here's why:

Social media, to me, is a hybrid between relationship/network marketing and direct marketing.

It’s relationship marketing if you know how to be a strategic thinker as well as be creative with your marketing messages. In other words, what to say and where to say it. Targeting is key. You have to look at each social media website to see if it, and it's users, are the right fit for your marketing message and business. Then, you need to craft your message accordignly. And that requires good creative, copywriting skills. (I've had tremendous success with LinkedIn, Twitter, Digg and StumbleUpon. But not so much with Facebook. For my business, Facebook users are not necessarily the decision makers I want to get in front of to help build my consulting business. However, I still promote my website on Facebook. I get to enjoy ancillary traffic and the backlink (SEO) from a top ranked website. But I don't count on real, solid leads.)

It’s direct response as you can measure results. Granted, it’s not as cut and dry as some other online marketing methods, like email. Where deliverability, clicks, opens, sales, and ROI is concrete. But, for me (and my business), I can specifically track any leads or sales I get back to specific social media platforms. And I can measure traffic to my website via Google Analytics from those same sites. As a core direct marketer, I don't waste my time on something I can't tie a metric to.

What do you think?

FYI, see these other two related articles I wrote on social media:
http://musclemarketing.blogspot.com/2009_03_15_archive.html
http://www.precisionmarketingmedia.com/publishers.html (article in “Online Marketing” section on “Measuring Social Media”).