Search Marketing Haiku

So many voices
Pulling at me with urgent messages
Be thoughtful, intentional

Why SEM haiku? As an antidote to the SEM practioners demanding immediacy, urgency, do it all, you are falling behind, doomsayers. Don’t have 100,000 followers on Twitter? Don’t have a monitized email list? Don’t have time to spend nurturing your Facebook Wall? What is the matter with you? You are being left behind!

What happened to thoughtful marketing built on solid goals, focused on your customers and done within your budget (both dollars and time)?

In the mad rush to be among the first to adopt a new social marketing tool, we are abandoning good practices in our zeal to not be left behind. See any parallels to the technology crash or the housing bust? How many stocks did you buy with sky-high price earnings ratios just because everyone else was doing it? Did you buy a house that was 1) more than you needed, 2) more than you could afford, 3) so you could flip it for a few bucks (choose all that apply) because you didn’t want to get left out of the housing boom?

Does this mean I don’t believe in social media marketing? Absolutely not! There are great tools and many cost-effective ways to use them. But just like any other business decision each one needs to be evaluated on its cost, risk and reward.