Many people claim that Halloween is just a marketing ploy by candy companies. Just like Mother’s Day is a marketing ploy by flower companies and Hallmark. And let’s not get started with Christmas.

That’s just utter nonsense.

That would assume that marketing has the power to make people change into utterly ridiculous costumes. And spend $5.8 billion on candy and other things that will be useless and forgotten tomorrow.

I’d love to meet that marketing department. We could all learn from them.

Now, marketing can be powerful. But it possesses no magical power.

Halloween is important for people for many reasons: They can express a hidden side of their personality. An opportunity to be someone else for a day. A great excuse for people to watch a gory movie, something they would normally not do. An opportunity for kids to eat loads of candy without getting too much criticism from their parents. And, Halloween taps into the age-old need of sharing stories that spread over generations. I’m sure you have 10,000 other reasons.

Most importantly, Halloween is so pervasive and growing each and every year because everybody else does it. You can’t escape it. There’s just too much peer pressure to get away from it. Or even change the slightest things. Try giving kids apples when they ask for candy. You’ll be the most hated person on the block for a long time to come. By kids and their parents. Just go to a pre-school and see how many kids are wearing the same costumes from movies they never (hopefully) watched: Spiderman, Transformer, Darth Vader. Peer Pressure and Groupthink is a natural extension of us being social animals.

We created this monster of a holiday. Companies just found ways to profit from it.

This column appeared first at Jack Myers’ MediaBizBlogger site.

Many people in the Social Marketing world say that anything social should be measured with soft metrics (fans, followers, number of conversations) and brands should focus on enhancing the brand by adding a social layer.

Sounds good to me.

Others in the Social Marketing world say that ultimately in marketing it’s always about money: Sales, increase in customer service efficiency (decrease in costs) and more effective ways to communicate with people compared to the guessing game we call advertising.

Sounds good to me.

How can we align both paradigms?

We’re living in tough times. Clients need good returns on their investment. Any discussion about Social Media will touch the money issue: Resources, re-allocation of funds, organizational commitment. Sure, there are organizations where the ROI is fabulous and immediate: Just ask Burger King, Starbucks or Dell.

What about the majority of brands?

Let’s be honest with them: Most likely, Social Marketing won’t deliver immediate sales increases or anything that can be quantified monetary. Social Marketing (well done) will add another layer to the overall brand experience that will help your sales number incrementally.

Will people read your tweets and immediately purchase your product? Hell no.

Will they join your community and share with the world that your brand is just the best and everybody in their social graph should join as well? Doubtful.

Will participation in Social platforms enhance the overall brand experience by providing a positive impression? Absolutely.

So many Social Marketing initiatives have been abandoned because they didn’t deliver immediate results. Don’t blame Social Media or the client for that result. Blame yourself for not setting the right expectations. There’s a lot of value in Social Media. It’s your job to unearth it and keeping it real.

You hear and read it everywhere: Social Media is overhyped. Social Media experts will soon be applying for jobs at Burger King. In the end, the bubble will burst and Social Media will be Second Life 2. Or Zune 3.

Even in the Social Media echo chamber, we can feel the skepticism and defeatism when discussing the future of Social Media. The big agencies and brand will take over and ruin everything. Again. (Cue the Kleenex box.) Brands don’t get it. (Fist against the wall.) Money ruins everything. (Head against the wall.)

And we thought Social Media would change the world.

Let me burst the first bubble: Social Media won’t change the world. Stop drinking that Kool-Aid, it’s not good for you. Technology has changed everything: Transforming people from consumers to producers. Changed human behavior. Redefining human relationships. Transforming how we live. Transforming companies how they do business. Transforming institutions. Changing everything.

Social Media is just one expression of that change. Nothing else. It’s more than another channel to broadcast your messages. But it’s not the messiah that will miraculously change the world.

We wanted to change the world and all we got was Lolcats.

The essence of human beings didn’t change because we have new technologies. Silliness is just another expression of human creativity. But we see people helping each other by using these technologies. On a small scale. On a big scale. I can send my kid every night a good night story while 7,000 miles away and share a video of my experiences in Tokyo with my wife, feeling a connection to my girls. I can meet the woman of my dreams online. I can have meaningful discussions with people all over the world without ever meeting them. Or finally meeting them. And that’s the just bottom of the first inning of a long game. I would argue, this is the bottom of the first inning of a Best of 7 World Series. Soon, you’ll be able to own your own data, share it on your own terms, issue personal RFP’s and revolutionize everything: healthcare, politics, marketing, enterprises – you name it. And that might be bottom of the second inning. Who knows what will happen in Game 7, bottom of the 9th?

So, let’s burst the bubble of the Social bubble.

If you define social as Facebook pages, Twitter feeds or a fancy application: That bubble will burst. I totally agree with you. And you should be cheering for it. Most of these initiatives are just applying the old broadcast strategies, tactics and metrics to a new way of interacting with people.

Social isn’t a beauty contest, a chase to add your follower counts or another popularity contest. These are the LolCats of social. What social is really about is trust, connection and community. Social is about rewiring human beings, communities, societies, business and the world.

So stop whining, stop being afraid of the Twitter/Facebook bubble to burst. Just keep on moving foward. We’ve barely begun.

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan “press on” has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.” – Clavin Coolidge