To some degree, I think we as marketers have been caught up in a type of thinking that’s reflective of our society as a whole – a desire for instant gratification and an expectation that we should be able to get a whole lot, without really having to do a whole lot of work.

“Leaders aren’t born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work. And that’s the price we’ll have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal.”

There have been some emerging signs of this attitude for a while, and we’re seeing more and more of it now that social media is at the forefront of everyone’s consciousness…

“We just need to come up with a YouTube video that is cheap to produce and will go viral to millions”

“With some quick-hit SEO, we should be able to shoot right to the top of the listings and instantly get more traffic”

“With Facebook and Twitter, we can do most of our marketing for free!”

While it can be easy to get caught up in all the hype, when intellectually honest with ourselves, we become fully aware of the flaws in this thinking.

Sure there are examples of viral videos that have caught lightning in a bottle, but it’s extremely rare and even less predictable. While SEO can make a big impact, doing it right requires a real, sustained commitment to long-term content creation and link building.  And, while social media is profoundly changing the way we can dialogue and build relationships with customers, the time commitment, thoughtfulness, and organizational changes it requires to deliver real value and keep the dialogue alive makes it anything but “free”.

With emerging media, as with anything else, there are no guarantees and success usually comes from smart planning, creativity, hard work and perseverance.

We shouldn’t lose sight of that which makes the foundation for long-term marketing success: a relevant, credible and ownable positioning; the ability to really connect with your target; and a smart, well-executed program of integrated tactics (including but not limited to social & emerging media).

It’s not the number of times your video has been viewed on YouTube, where you rank on the SERPs, or how many followers you have.  Real marketing success is defined by answers to questions such as: Are we increasing qualified leads and sales?  Is there greater awareness and preference for our brand? Are we building customer relationships that will lead to greater loyalty and lifetime value?

Additionally, while analytics has given us the power to measure results real time, it has also made us more impatient.  In our quest for instant ROI, sometimes we can be too quick to abandon a campaign when, if we would just allow a little more time for an idea to take hold or put in a little more work to test/optimization, we might find that we really have a winner.

We should try to remember that many overnight sensations took years to create. Sure, lightning can strike and when it does we need to be prepared to capitalize, but for most of us a pragmatic, smart, disciplined, integrated marketing approach that combines solid blocking and tackling AND the occasional Hail Mary (not ONLY Hail Marys) gives a much better chance of long-term success.  Achieving it requires hard work and commitment, smarts and hustle. Because, no matter what the tactics, there really are no shortcuts.