Since social media is a relatively new field in the marketing industry, there is still a lot of wiggle room for what exactly marketers should be doing with their jobs. This freedom has allowed social media marketers to produce vague results and avoid self-scrutiny in their work.

Consequentially, this lack of standards and rubrics has prevented the industry from settling on solid ground. But not anymore: marketers must begin asking the tough questions about social media.

It is such questions as these that often trip up marketers in any field: “Why is this our goal?” or “Why are we talking about this?” or “If marketing’s goal is X, why is social’s Y?” These questions take a lot of thought to answer. And, unless social media marketers ask them, social media’s place within the general marketing field will not become apparent.

Where does social media fit in?

Other marketing teams have specific outcomes in mind, and social media should too. Social media’s autonomy, while allowing it to develop differently from traditional marketing, has inadvertently crippled the industry in the long-term. Traditional marketing teams and social media marketing teams need to work together and devise specific goals so both can thrive as coalescent marketing unit.

Every trend is pointing to social media as the way of the future. Social media marketers need to produce tangible goals in their efforts so the industry does not remain a nebulous  with untapped possibilities.
See Simply Measured for more.