When you search for marketing funnel on Google you will get close to 600 000, more or less relevant, hits. And the majority of these are about how bad it is (-no, I haven’t gone through them all, just skimmed the pages…)

It feels like everybody is more concerned about why it doesn’t work, and especially in connection with Social Medias, so they present their own models of thinking.

To me the model works fine – as long as I am using it as a model… Let me explain: I use it (and all other models I am using) according to the Oxford English Dictionary (11^th Edition revised): “A simplified description of a system or process, to assist predictions.” (Rewritten).

On a basic level:

• Level 1: Start to communicate to a target group (generate leads)
• Level 2: There is some form of response from a selection of the first group (opportunities)
• Level 3: Based on my goal for my communication I get a new response from an even smaller selection of the level 2 group (proposals)

And so the funnel continues until you reach your goal (might be new customers).

The basic shape would be (hopefully the bottom wouldn’t be as small as in this picture):

To me, Social Medias is just a channel in this model (alongside all the other channels like print, radio TV and so on). All of course with they own unique characteristic and qualities.

As long as you treat Twitter in this traditional way; you communicate your message through Twitter and you might, or might not, get a response (or be read).

You probably would say that this is a limited view of Social Medias and that I miss the true meaning which is to engage in a dialog with your customers, and of course you would be right…

But what if you removed yourself from the dialog and saw the goal of Social Medias was to get others to talk about you (the strongest form of acknowledgment you can get)?

What if you managed to start a dialog program to expand the numbers of leads that transforms into customers (but it expanded more than the number of leads you started with?

Our goal is to generate leads and by giving them the information they really need to make a decision they should be so satisfied with the service that they will tell friends, probably through Social Medias, and then the group will expand without us doing more marketing (the viral effect). And for some the decision we help them make could also be that you should not buy our product. The goal is potential happy customers, not as many customers as possible.

The new and hairy marketing funnel will then look like a pyramid:

But remember… it’s just a model…