Marketing via Social Media

Everyone and his dog are telling us that we mustn't ignore Social Media in promoting a business - everyone, that is, except a few strange people on LinkedIn who claim that it's detrimental to a venture and cite a handful of out-of-context examples (the fact that they're website designers can't have anything to do with it?) - but this feature Big Hospitality, 31st January 2011 told me precisely zilch.

Business Development Director Simon Beck, of PR Consultants Hill Balfour says, "Consumers today are able to research and digest information across a number of mediums – TV, print, online, radio and of course through social media." Erm, excuse me, but aren't social media part of online?

These purveyors of gobbledygook, with their argot of above-the-line versus below-the-line advertising, are facing testing times now that so many businesses can do their own marketing very simply and effectively. At the end of the day, after all the blue-sky thinking, pushing the envelope and going the extra mile the genie's out of the bottle and the Emperor's got no clothes.