Sometimes it seems like all marketing breaks down into two camps.

In one camp are the giants. The big, traditional advertising agencies. Where everything is about big. The Big Idea. The Big Media. The Big Media Buy. And, of course, the Big Bill. But don’t dare ask them what sales came from any particular commercial or billboard or magazine insert.

In the other camp are the social-media experts. Where everything is about the crowd. How many friends. How many fans. How many followers. How much they’re spreading the word. How viral your campaign is. And, best of all, everything is free! But don’t dare ask them how hard it really is to create and sustain an authentic voice that really delivers something of value to your fans—and to get your voice heard above the millions.

And, you know what? If you have the budget, the giants might be the right answer. And if you have the time to spend building a fanbase, every day, with uniquely valuable content, that might be the right answer, too.

But here, we prefer a third way.

It’s a way in-between the giants and the crowd. We could come up with a grandiose description of it, like the “Centric Closed-Loop Marketing Optimization Model,” but here’s what it really is: common sense. Here’s how it works:

1. We start with your goals. If you’re looking for leads for a $250,000 machine, mass media is absolutely stupid. On the other hand, if you’re looking to dominate a certain geography, mass media may make a lot of sense.

2. We augment your website, if needed. Whether you’re looking for leads, awareness, or sales, your website has to engage and convert people. If it doesn’t, forget going further.

3. We deploy what we can measure. Measurable stuff starts online. We’ve run online marketing programs for a decade now. We start with these baseline activities, such as SEO, AdWords, and email. It may extend offline, to direct mail and other outreach. We measure it all, and have a human look at it every week. And drop what’s not working and add to what is.

4. We assess if there’s a place for you in mass media, and carefully test it. Yes. There is a place for broadcast, outdoor, and print in this world. It depends on what you’re looking for. If we proceed with mass media, we track it as carefully as we can, through unique URLs or response codes. And we optimize that, too.

5. We see if there’s an opportunity in social, and carefully test it. Do you have something uniquely of interest to your prospects, and staff to promote it a couple of hours per day? If so, there may be an opportunity in social. Like everything else online, this is carefully measured and optimized.

And there you have it: Measure it all. Do more of what works. Do less of what doesn’t.

It may not sound as sexy as a Big Idea, or as tempting as Totally! Free! Marketing!, but you know what? It works.

The pitch sounds good: “As a web development firm, we specialize in ONLY (insert industry here.) We’ve developed sites for dozens, or even hundreds, of companies just like yours. And we have a complete, pre-packaged solution that is absolutely perfect for your (industry.)”

And the demo looks good! It’s slick. It’s easy to use. It looks like everything you need—and it’s already up and running!

And who wouldn’t want the security of choosing a vendor that dozens, or hundreds, of other companies in your same industry have chosen? They know your unique industry challenges. They know the buzzwords and gotta-haves. They won’t have a big learning curve. It’s a decision that’s easy to back up in front of the board.

But before you dive in and sign that contract, there are some questions you should ask yourself:

If dozens or hundreds of my competitors are using this system, does it provide the competitive advantage I need to stand apart from them?

How “like yours” are all those other companies, anyway—don’t you have unique processes, procedures, sales support, or other needs that may not fit into a one-size-fits-all approach?

Will we stand out enough among all the other companies they’re working with—will we matter, or are we just a number to them?

And, even if those questions don’t give you pause, here are some you should ask your vendor:

What happens if we want to make changes to a standard module, or create a new module to serve a unique need we have, during the development process? What happens if we want to do this after development is complete?

What does your system training look like, and can you go through a quick demo with myself and a non-technical person now?

What’s the bottom-line one-time cost—a single number, not a range, not a smorgasbord of options. Do you guarantee zero variance?

What’s the bottom-line ongoing cost—again, a single, easy to understand number? If there’s ongoing “maintenance,” what does it cover? If there’s ongoing software licensing costs, what does this cover and why is it necessary?

Can I put the site on the host of my choice, or does it have to reside at your datacenter? If I put it on a host outside your datacenter, does it cost more?

Do I own the code you developed for me?

What if I want to move away from your platform in the future? How hard is it to get the data out of your system? What are the costs associated with getting data into a standard, portable format? Has anyone done this? Please provide references of clients who have done this.

Now, just to be clear: there are good pre-packaged solutions out there. And there are bad ones. This is just a guide that might help you steer around the gotchas.

Because, if you don’t do your homework, and look deeper than the simple answers and shiny, scripted demos, you can end up with a system you’re locked into, a system that doesn’t serve all your needs, a system that ends up costing far more than you expected—and has ongoing fees which never end.

Centric has been selected by BowTie Publishing to lead the redesign of their premier DogChannel.com website.

Who’s BowTie? Well, if you’ve ever read Dog Fancy, Cat Fancy, or any one of a number of pet-focused magazines (yes, even if you’re a reptile aficionado), you know BowTie.

What you may not know is how extensive their online presence is. Online, Bowtie’s Animal Network spans DogChannel.com, CatChannel.com, BirdChannel.com, HorseChannel.Com, FishChannel.com, ReptileChannel.com, and even SmallAnimalChannel.com. No matter what kind of furry friend–or scaly friend–you’re interested in, BowTie is the definitive source for news, information, and community.

We’re looking forward to working with Bowtie in the months ahead!

Okay, let’s continue our series of the “whys” of social media.

This series assumes the following scenario: Your website is in order. Your brand is consistent. Your offers are converting. Your conventional media is efficiently deployed. Now, you have the time to explore what social media might do for your marketing. Or you’ve been told, point blank, to find out.

Given that, why would you engage with one social media outpost over the next? We covered Twitter and Facebook. This week, we’ll cover the leader in online video: YouTube.

YouTube

YouTube has more aggregate reach and engagement than all the television networks in North America. Perhaps the world. Visits aren’t measured in seconds. They’re measured in hours. And YouTube has connected people in new ways, uncovered new talent, and been host to many a user-generated content campaign for brands.

Sounds like a place you want to be, right? After all, you have that video they did for the fab line last year, and you have a television commercial or three, and you may even have Larry, the hilarious webcam guy in your cube farm. And video is easy to produce, right? I mean, that guy in Brazil just got that $30MM Hollywood contract from his $300 short film.

In short: not so fast.

Yes, you may have video assets, and yes, quality video is getting easier and easier to produce, but if you expect to “go viral” with a mishmash of 30-second spots and some Flipcam video, you’ll have a lot harder time than you’ll expect. For every Will it Blend, for every Panic Attack, there are thousands or tens of thousands of failures. Online video needs to engage and excite the target audience. Commercials usually don’t do that. Online video needs to have a unique angle. Rehashes of sitcoms don’t work. And online video needs to be produced on an ongoing basis, or your audience will move on to the next video du jour.

Sounds like a lot of work, doesn’t it? That’s because it is. If you don’t have the time and resources geared directly to YouTube, and a good knowledge of what makes a good video, and a unique angle that will be useful or interesting to your target audience, don’t bother.

So what can you do with YouTube? Well, quite a bit, actually.

Use it to tear down your internal video server. Now that YouTube support high-definition (HD) content, is there really any reason to hang on to that streaming server you’ve had hidden away at the colocation facility for the past 5 years? No. Lose it, put all your existing content up on YouTube, use YouTube’s seamless embedding function to put the content on your sites, and save the load on your server. If you gain a few more viewers because it’s on the ‘Tube, great. If not, hey, you still win.

Use it for unique how-tos and tutorials. Yeah, there are a million how-to-learn-CSS tutorials on YouTube. But is there one on, say, the way to get the best results out of your atomic force microscope imaging? Or on how to service a liftgate? Or on ten ways to become an expert witness? No. There aren’t. Highly specific how-tos and tutorials make your customers happy. And the more specialized your product or service is, the more important these tutorials are. With the low cost of video production, it may be well worth your while to set aside a few days to create a short series . . . and do it again, and again, and again.

Use it to create a trusted voice. If you do have someone who’s comfortable being in front of the camera, whether it’s the “tell it like it is” CEO, or a hammy-but-endearing engineer, or even a bumbling car salesman, video is a great way to personalize your company and create a trusted voice that people will come back to. One caution, though: highly visible team-members are also highly visible to your competition.

Use it for contests. Is your audience young, savvy, and engaged enough to shoot video to enter a contest? YouTube is still one of the best places to run a user-generated video contest. A word of warning on this one, though, too: UGC takes effort. If it’s not worth their effort, you may end up with only a handful of submissions. Think long and hard about how you can make it easier for them (like sharing a video they already have on YouTube) and how big the prize should be (hint: your software probably isn’t enough, unless you’re someone like Autodesk.)

Use it for fame and fortune (maybe.) It’s easy to dismiss YouTube’s successes like Will it Blend as a one-in-a-million opportunity, but consider this: if you don’t try, it’ll never happen. Who knows? You (or your company) may be the next viral hit. You may succeed beyond your wildest expectations. Just don’t count on it.

And, you know what, even if fame and fortune never come, you’ve only spent a little and learned a lot. With video becoming a pervasive part of our society–think of the 100+million phones that take video, the webcams showing up on every new laptop, iPods that shoot video, Flip cams, video showing up in digital SLRs–you might want to do it just to get a headstart on the future.

There are days when I say I’m going to get a plaque to put up in the office—a plaque that reads something like, “It’s amazing we’ve been so successful, considering how honest we are.”

These days usually happen when I read something like what Tom Hespos wrote in his iMediaconnection article, How to Avoid Social Media Burnout. Now, don’t get me wrong. It’s a great article with solid advice. But the assumptions made in this paragraph just sent me off the chart:

“For instance, a digital agency might think a Facebook program consists of putting up and managing a brand page. A media agency might recommend buying a bunch of banners on social networks to drive traffic to a brand page.  The PR agency might recommend organic outreach and seeding of Facebook groups. Coincidentally, what each entity believes is the right solution has a lot to do with how they get compensated.”

Well, hell. I guess we’ve been working way too hard. I thought it was the duty of the agency to counsel their client as to the best overall, integrated approach to reach their marketing goals. That’s what Centric has always done. And, guess what? We’ve recommended and implemented all of the following, based on our clients’ goals:

Creating brand pages
Buying banners
Organic outreach and seeding
Widget and app development

and (wait for it):

Staying out of social altogether, because the company doesn’t have the time, attention, or budget to devote to it

or :

Getting into social in a big, strategic way, because there’s huge opportunity that aligns with the brand

And, at the same time, we’ve explained to our clients, in plain English, what the pros and cons of each of these approaches are, why we think a particular approach is better than another for their needs, and if we think we can do it effectively. And, you know what, when we can’t do something, we’ll recommend someone who does—oftentimes to the detriment of our bottom line.

But I guess I’ve been running the business wrong for this past decade and a half.

We care too much about our clients’ success. We want to do what’s right for them, and what makes sense. We’ve been spending way too much time being honest, when we should just settle down and recommend only what we do, and only what we make the most money on.

But I can’t do that. We can’t do that.

Bottom line: in social marketing, or in marketing in general, you should be looking for a broad-based agency you can trust, not a palette of agencies that will fight to keep control over their own fiefdoms. Sit down with them–not on a golfcourse or at a bar, or in their box seats, but in their offices, or yours, and ask them the hard questions: How broad are you, really? What is your experience with strategic social programs? What can you do, and what can’t you do? Oh yeah? Show me.

And when you can find one that gives you answers you trust (and may even admit to not having all the answers, because the agency that has all the answers to an emerging marketing field like social is either clairvoyant or less than honest, and may even admit that, well, nothing is guaranteed and nothing is easy), then–and only then–see what they can do.