The medical and legal fields are not ones I would associate with aggressive marketing (outside the ambulance chasers). I am looking for social media marketing successes to come for small to medium-sized businesses who use their money to zero in on specific local markets. This may not happen for a while – as noted, social search is still taking baby steps. And I agree with Stuart that social media is just part of a healthy marketing diet. But I wouldn’t write off advertising as a sustainable revenue model for social media standouts.

Stuart, You hit the nail on the head here. Social media is great…as long as it’s part of an integrated marketing strategy. Like other pieces of the marketing mix, it’s only as good as the ties that bind it to the big picture. And content (or whatever) pushed out over social media should make sense in that space, not just be repurposed advertising messages, etc.

Frank: “Where are the doctors, lawyers, and other regular business people.”

Amen, brother. Will be interesting to see when/if social media “trickles down” to all.

You’re spot on with the last point, if there’s no money in it, this stuff isn’t going to last. People might like it, but unless they start paying for it, or unless the social sites find some funding or a way to sell something else (ads? “premium services”? pr0n?) that somebody actually wants to buy, “DOOMED” is putting it mildly.

Words to live by. Regardless of what .0 we are in. But yeah advertising revenue models are really really bad to rely on. I try and steer away from those. I just like the supplemental features that social media adds to a multi-tiered marketing program.