Social networks have become one of the main uses for the internet. In the past it was a great way to market, especially with many of the social networks offering the ability to target audiences very specifically. With Facebook's IPO failing and the increase in competition between the social networks, the social networks seem to be offering more paid ways to market products and services; and decreasing the value of free marketing ways on their platforms. Users of the social networks now seem to simply ignore all forms of marketing and even find certain means of marketing on the social networks irritating, leading to them spending less time on the social network. Does marketing on social networks still hold any value? Are there any innovative ways to effectively market to users of social networks?
I don't know about facebook or g+ but twitter is still a great and fast way to promote your stuff. The obvious caveat would be whether or not you have a decent amount of followers (50,000+).
I've had the most success on LinkedIn interacting with groups within my niche. FB and G + haven't yielded many results for me personally though.
It doesn't have as much impact as it used to because everyone is doing it. A few years back only select people were doing it so it had a massive impact for them. Much like anything in life, in order fo get the best efficiency you need to get on it first. Having said that, it is still effective, just not as much anymore.
Social media marketing still works. As long as you interact with your prospects and build genuine relationships, you will make sales. It does take time, but it's well worth the effort.
In my opinion, social media marketing is powerful tool today also. It hasn't got any drawback in recent times. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media websites provides a lot traffic to websites and blogs.
Some say social media is the way to go now that SEO is not that effective anymore. And mobile too, of course. Going social takes a lot of hard work, but if you manage to think of something that goes viral, great results can happen overnight - that's why it's so much better than SEO.
50,000+ sounds like a goal that I'm going to try to reach. If you can get just 1% of your follower to notice each Tweet, that's 500 potential visitors.
No offense, but I really hate this question. It's so far off it's not even funny. Social media will never lose it's effectiveness, in fact, it's working better and better.