Alan Thorpe, of Digital Marketing Agency, Indicia, assesses the success of those who are and who are not taking a bite out of the social cherry. So, what's the cost of not being social?

Last week, a senior client-side financial-services marketing agency man asked me this question. It’s trickier to answer than you think.

Take Apple: a global leader that apparently doesn’t live social.

Are they suffering? Hardly. Yet others simply could not operate without it. It’s thrilling to see how ultra-modern has met history to create brilliance at Burberry. Indicia’s own clients, in particular Tourism Ireland, have achieved stunning results and fantastic levels of customer engagement by using social to open up their marketing to consumer influence and contribution.   

Now we’re seeing marketing agency land use the medium to find the next generation of creatives.

A brilliant idea.  

So put yourself in the position of my financial services challenger. What is the opportunity cost of not doing social when you’ve to hit a short-term target? I doubt that any of us would argue that, as a minimum, effective social monitoring is a must. The ability to respond to complaints aired through social media is just good business.  

And who would not want to know what consumers are saying about their marketing, products and services? Fantastic feedback – virtually for free. One of our talented planners, Becky Heard, recently blogged about the best social monitoring tools.      

To me the opportunity cost of not doing social is the wrong question. The right questions are where are your existing and future customers to be found? What media do they engage with? And is your marketing native to social channels (and therefore effective rather than jarring).   

It may well be that, at least in the short term, the social marketing numbers simply don’t add up for all brands. 

But in a world where most of us are glued to a screen it’s hard to imagine many brands having long-term staying power outside of the medium. So make sure your marketing department (or marketing agency) can provide a brilliant monitoring tool. At some point, the numbers of interactions are going to soar. 

Are you ready? You should be.