I’m just about over Flash forever. I once heard flash refered to as it as the “flashy gold chain of the internet.” I tend to agree – especially when it’s used for a site intro. But I am guilty of using it on sites in the past, some of which I would still defend.

I do have some caveats to my being over Flash statement. Flash video and banners are effective uses of media that’s not meant to be search able. It’s, served paid media after all. So if you’re browsing with a mobile browser, you shouldn’t be served it anyway. Also, some specific sites and applications inside a site that do not need to be searched and are not intended to be dynamic content are fine as long as it’s properly tagged and you have some other content to drive your SEO. But you just better be ready to live with the Flash content for awhile.

So where does this loathing of Flash come from?

Search engines still hate it.

It’s a pain in the ass to make changes.

It takes more time to execute most things in Flash which can be a real drag on making deadlines.

The biggest reason though is incompatibility with mobile. And mobile is more important than ever.

Some accounts have 1/3 of all internet usage on mobile devices. And mobile web usage is supposed to double in the next three years. So why the hell would you build a site that doesn’t work on mobile? Of course, you could just build two sites and have one served to mobile browsers. But why not just build one great site?

A few months ago I worked on an advertising project that came up because a client was promised some free production and media. This offer was too good to pass up so they asked the agency to add some value and help make the most out of the opportunity.

I bet you know where I’m going with this. What was promised to be “free” ended up costing far more than free. I could provide a long list of costs but that would just be boring. Let’s just say, the man hours it took to turn something free into something that represented the brand well was nothing close to free.

Free social media is exactly the same way. There are all kinds of not so obvious costs that need to be considered before starting an effort.

Monitoring: Either you have to pay for a service or tool. Or you need to pay someone to spend time with the freebies and Excel.

Strategy: You need to know what and where you will be engaging.

Moderating and community management: You will need someone experienced to engage and respond to customers.

Tools: Sometimes you need to purchase technology to make the best use of your social media.

Plan for success: What happens if things go really well? You need a plan and financial resources manage success.

Our client was smart, they recognized the need to spend on free media to make the most of it. And once you spend money on something you tend to put more value on executing it correctly. And then you’ll have a better chance of it paying off.