social media and Malaysia

Of late, I've been reading a lot of SEO related articles and how social media is the new phenomenon of the internet. Every article I read seems to imply that old marketing (newspaper, billboards, radio ad etc) is now outdated and doesn't work anymore. Businesses (smaller organisations) could spent up to ten over thousands of dollars for such advertising gimmick but the ROI is certainly (in my point of view) not measurable.

The hype now is on social media such as twitter, facebook, blogs, online forums and so on and so forth. I have no qualms on following this trend - as it is much cheaper as opposed to traditional advertising. And the beauty of social media is like a virus, they spread very fast and they can be contagious. Social media is indeed in new way for businesses to advertise and be out there, especially if you are looking for prominent branding on the web. But I'm having doubts if it can really boost local business based in Malaysia (a developing country that is crawling behind not only in terms of technology but also many other things). Are malaysians ( and I'm not referring to ALL malaysians, of course) that savvy to at the forefront with the advancement of social media ? My point is there are in fact many big organisations out there ( even those of Fortune 500 companies) are still not social media conscious.

I read a book recently titled "The New Rules of Marketing & PR" and there was one particular sentence that makes me wonder - should a business like RedRibbon Days ignored all traditional marketing rules and focus on social media ? If Malaysians can't embrace the concept fully, and still inclined to traditional marketing rules ( I do have my point for saying so), how can a young fledging company like RedRibbon Days turn a blind eye to the old marketing rules?

As I mentioned before, traditional marketing is still very prominent in country like Malaysia. Our national newspaper (The Star) is as thick as a book, and every page you flip - you are bombarded with advertisement after advertisement. Billboards stretches along the highway - and you can practically see billboards no matter which direction you are coming from! Still on the same note, it will cost advertisers at least 20k (if not more) for a full-colored page advertisement in the national newspaper - yet businesses are still throwing money in the name of traditional AMP.

Unless you are a MNC or own a multi-billion organisation, then such money spent is certainly of no pinch to you, but for newly start up small-medium organisation - who wants to play the rules of AMP right, but do not have the money to do so, can we really afford to ignore traditional marketing and focus totally on social media?