As we enter the New Year, it’s clear that Marketers across both B2C and B2B industries are continuing to invest heavily in Social – as a recent study by IBM indicates.

Yet there are still voices that continue to label Social as a ‘fad’ that will fade in importance in 2012 and beyond. For instance, Vivek Wadhwa predicted that Social will ‘lose its sizzle’ in this past week’s Washington Post.

It’s already happening in fact, as growth of social media usage has begun to slow for upstarts such as FourSquare and stalwarts such as Facebook alike. Silicon Valley has been obsessed with social media and investors have funded hundreds of “me too” start-ups to the tune of billions of dollars. There are social networks for pet owners, all manner of marginal Twitter apps, a ridiculous number of mobile photo-sharing apps, hundreds of apps targeting social media analytics and on and on and on.

Yet, is ‘losing sizzle’ such a bad thing? Or is it a signal that Social is becoming pervasive and mainstream?

There are still plenty of advocates for the value of Social. Forrester analyst William Band recently spoke for the demonstrated value of Social in Forrester’s The Top Thirteen Customer Management Trends for 2012:

More social CRM use cases spotlighting demonstrable business value will emerge. Forrester’s annual Groundswell Awards showcases hundreds examples of how organizations use Social Computing — for example, in market research, customer self-service, and product development.

Salesforce.com claims that 2011 was the year that Social already went mainstream.

Salesforce.com VP of Strategy John Taschek suggested in his recent blog post that ‘The Social Revolution Has Just Begun’ (and agreed with my comments that while pundits and others may overstate change in the short-term, we are understating it in the longer-term).

I could go on and on, presenting various opinions on how ‘hot’ or not Social is and will be. While investors will care (in large part to justify the stratospheric valuations many Social companies are receiving), it’s not clear at all why companies seeking to leverage Social should.

Then what does matter? Gary Vaynerchuk (i.e. @garyvee) does his usual very direct job of getting to the heart of what does matter, in this recent Inc. Magazine piece.

Social-media marketing’s monetization will come, too, he says. “People don’t want to embrace culture shifts because it’s not going to happen in the next 20 minutes,” he says.

“When I hear people debate the ROI of social media? It makes me remember why so many business fail,” Vaynerchuk says. “Most businesses are not playing the marathon. They’re playing the sprint. They’re not worried about lifetime value and retention. They’re worried about short-term goals.”

So what should you be doing? Think long term, and consider how you can earn life-long customers. Says Vaynerchuk, “Social-media marketing is like going Beyonce on your customers. You’ve got to put a f—ing ring on it.”

In other words, for those of you trying to use it, don’t do Social because it’s ‘hot’. Do it because it’s about your customers and the value of their long-term relationship with you. In the words of Nick Cifuentes of ClickZ:

The long-term effect here is what makes social media more valuable than any other form of marketing. It connects with every part of your organization’s business.

As ‘Social’ continues to become mainstream and pervasive, we will likely no longer call it out as a special ‘hot’ category any more. Even the skeptical Wadwha admits to this:

Just as location-based applications became a “feature” rather than the “big thing,” social media will live on and become an integral part of what we do.

Exactly.