‘Social Media is not enough’, is something that I have been saying to business owners for some time. Lately, I have gone further, “Not only is social media not enough for some businesses to rely on for marketing success, but increasingly it will risk reputational damage and provoke client flight.
Over-reliance on one or a small number of platforms for marketing is a dangerous game. For example, I know business owners who relied solely on word of mouth to gain new clients. Of course, having clients who commend your excellence to others can be invaluable. Some business owners discovered when the pandemic struck that not having a wider network or a robust set of additional marketing tools meant that when they lost their client pool, they had no way to quickly pivot towards growing another.
Also, a well-known tactic of businesses early on is to offer an outstanding, market-dominating service at low cost, only to shunt their pricing up horribly when market domination is achieved. Estate agents, and I have worked with a few and am interested in the sector, used to resent the pricing of local newspaper property ads. These ads have shrunk to negligible levels as estate agents switched to the big online property portals. These portals in turn grew their fees to such a degree that estate agents looked for alternatives, even setting up their own online platform.
But then, social media, which is arguably now seen as the be-all and end-all of marketing for some businesses and organisations, isn’t the best of channels. Whatever the motives that the likes of Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, You Tube, and more were set up with, channel by channel, and to a greater or lesser extent, they have become toxic. The story of tennis player Katie Boulter as just one recipient of awful online abuse is as common a story as, say, that of the England women’s football team. The issue of online abuse was a topic in Nicky Campbell’s BBC Radio 5 Live show on 18 June 2025, here (the link will not work after 28 days from this date). Throw in social media’s boosting misogyny, perfectionism (read author Thomas Curran on that one), and many more problems, and it really isn’t doing well. And… do you think social media is clear and transparent? Don’t.
If you go onto, say, Instagram, direct messages such as this appear all too often. Here is one I received, one of many like this:
Are уоu interеsted to grоwing yоur Instаgrаm aссоunt 100% guarаntееd
- 1k followers : 10 $
- 2k follоwеrs : 20 $
- 3k fоllowеrs : 30 $
- 5k fоllowеrs : 45 $
- 10k fоllоwers: 80 $
- 20k follоwers :150 $ ___
- 1k random positive comments for 40$ ___
- 10k viеws for 5 $
- 1k Likes for 5 $
- *Раck views :100k viеws for 40 $
- *Pаck Likes :10k Likеs fоr 40 $ —————————— Техt me in my offiсial acсount @XXXXXXXX it’s nесessarу to answеr quiсklу. Wе also providе sеrvicеs on YouTubе and TikTоk and other!! We have FREE trial!!
So much for the authenticity of social media.
Moreover, if you use X, you may be getting tired of these tedious messages, often starting with the intriguing but meaningless ‘mmm’. These fakes often lead to spurious investment opportunities.
BBC Radio 4’s MoneyBox show shared the story of a person who had seen adverts claiming that Prime Minister Keir Starmer was commending an overlooked investment opportunity. After the victim lost £10,000, she discovered that this was a scam.
In a recent episode of The Rest Is Politics, presenting duo Alistair Campbell and Rory Stewart referred to their being, in their case as high-profile media and political figures, around 20-40% of traffic about them on the X platform as being bots.
Add to this the malign influence of some social media users and platform owners – as referenced on journalist Marianna Spring’s Marianna in Conspiracyland series, and the picture worsens.
This post was originally published on 11 May 2025 and was updated on 18 June and 2 July 2025.
Darren Weale, Founder, In Tune PR
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