How effective is social media marketing?

[Pluto Jones]

It depends on your product and the "sex appeal" of it to a social audience. Is it something exciting like a new Apple product, or something mundane like socks?

That's the biggest factor in whether or not you can be really successful with social - I've worked with a lot of companies that just aren't that fun to talk about with friends... think banking or insurance. On the other hand I've worked with companies that are in the travel industry, bands, and movie companies which *do* have exciting products people want to talk about.

You can get someone to do it for you, but it can be pretty expensive if you go the agency route. I'd suggest you read up online to see about managing it yourself first, it's pretty straight forward.