There’s been a lot of talk lately about social media marketing and how affordable it is, especially during a recession. But is it really a replacement for other forms of marketing, such as leads, and if so — when?

Social media marketing is great for marketing on a budget because it requires less money, even though it does take more of your time (or require that you pay someone for THEIR time). This enables businesses to still get good marketing done even when money is really tight, as it is right now for many businesses both small and large.

The classic examples of social media marketing are the social networks such as Facebook and MySpace. For example, a hair replacement company might have profiles on these websites, and spread the word about their company by befriending people, providing resources such as bulletins with helpful information (kind of like newsletters), posting videos to their page, etc. Other ways they might promote themselves via social media is on sites like YouTube, where they can post videos about, say, how to care for your hair after a transplant, or the average hair restoration cost.

However, this kind of marketing takes time. If you have lots of business right now, you or your employees may not have the time to do this kind of marketing yourselves — but conversely, if you have that much business, you probably have more money to spend on marketing.

This is, of course, where leads come in. Leads are helpful because someone has already done the footwork for you — all that’s left is to make the sale. If you want to maximize your work time, and you can afford to do so, leads are a great option because they enable you to focus on clients rather than on marketing.

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