Big Vs Small - The social issue!

Social marketing is the latest buzz word and whether you are a startup or a big wig you want to get social. And though many intellectual souls have already written, spoken and thought about how social marketing varies for big and small enterprises i thought i will also put in my 2 paisa on 2 key points.

1. Focus & Direction - The problem with startups and SMEs is that social marketing lacks a clear direction and there's no fault of small enterprises in this. The reason is that most of the action a company takes in its initial days is to either create demand (sales) or fulfil demand (delivery) - hardly ever to generate demand (marketing). Keeping this in mind the minute startups/SMEs move on to sales through social marketing - its a dead end!
2. Dedicated Effort - Where large enterprises will hire people to do the job or have dedicated resources doign socializing, small companies will generally multitask and so a day of heavy tweets and another day of desserted look! Social networking requires dedicated effort and time.

That's where i believe that social marketing is a good marketing weapon for big wigs and a nice sword for startups if and only if used in right direction.