The Dark Secret of Social Media....it's NOT free

Do a search on Google using the terms "social media free" and you get 242,000,000 results, then do a search on "social media costs" and you only get 92,200,000. Clearly 92 million is a lot of results, but the 2.5x difference seems to indicate a belief that Social Media  is Free. It is not - there are costs.

For the most part, these social media costs fall into the following general buckets:

• Internal Resource Costs - specifically the personnel costs required to initiate, monitor and respond to social media conversations; and the personnel costs required to create the content that is used. We are starting to see both new roles being created to focus on this area (e.g. social media coordinator, community managers, engagement specialists, etc.), and additional responsibilities being added to existing resource's plates (leading to a reduction of focus elsewhere).
• External Resource Costs - agency costs associated with supporting and advising social media activities, and the creation of content.
• Technology Costs - the tools needed to Monitor, Contribute and Measure social media conversations. Many basic tools are free, but premium and integrated suites like Radian6 or Hubspot have fees associated. (Shameless plug: to get up-to-date info on social media technologies, follow my daily Twitter feed for the "Social Marketing Apps - Clutter Buster Daily Tweet" @ www.twitter.com/grahamlubie or do a search on #socmktgapps)

Companies are beginning to realize that there is a cost to Social Media. According to a recent Social Media and Online PR Report by Econsultancy, 54% of companies identify "the biggest barrier to better social media engagement is the lack of resources. Now the key issue for companies to address, is where will the Social Media budget come from? Existing programs or an expansion of marketing budgets?

Social Marketing Apps - Clutter Buster Daily Tweet

New Social Marketing apps are popping up every day, and it is tough to keep track of all the different players. So, starting today, I am sending a once-a-day Tweet highlighting an innovative Social Marketing app. Here's the general format: [AppName]-[Bit.ly URL]-[Type] #socmktgapps.

Break through the clutter.....click the "I Tweet Follow Me on Twitter button" and hear about the best and most innovative Social Marketing applications available on the market. 1 app will be highlighted Monday through Friday. So, sign-up and follow me on Twitter. My Twitter id is  http://twitter.com/grahamlubie. You may get a couple of other tweets occasionally, but only a handful at most.

See today's Tweet about a great, real-time conversation monitoring application. It's very cool.

(BTW - I am tagging these as Social Marketing vs. Social Media apps since they are specifically related to the marketing function. I believe that "Social Media" is broader in range and can address functions outside of just marketing and PR).