From the outside in, social media marketing appears to be free. Social media sites are free to use, as are almost all of the utilities that make it easier to integrate them.

Sounds good, right? Almost too good.

And it is too good to be true. The plain fact is, social media marketing isn’t free. It takes time to…

• Prepare a social media marketing strategy
• Create a social media marketing plan
• Implement the plan
• Analyse the results

Somebody has to do this work. If it’s you, you’re paying an opportunity cost. If it’s a professional, you’re paying a premium for expertise (hopefully recovered by superior results).

Recently a professional social media marketer told me she spent at least 4 hours per day on social media sites. It’s her bread and butter, so I suppose it’s not as surprising as it first seems. Yet I can’t imagine investing that amount of time working sites like Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed and the like.

Social media may purport to be a wonderful new marketing tool that changes all the rules. Despite the hype, I suspect the fundamental law of economics still applies: There’s no such thing as a free lunch.

Social Media Marketing