Betty White, the legendary 88-year-old comedienne on a renaissance run of late, recently hosted Saturday Night Live—an achievement she owes largely to a Facebook group that helped her get onto the show. Ironically, White didn’t even know what Facebook was until recently, when she took a look and surmised it “a huge waste of time.”

That joke got lots of laughs, but the truth is her words echo the thoughts of many restaurateurs who’ve tried social media marketing without getting results. If that’s you, marketing expert Lisa Barone says not to blame it on social media channels.

In an article she penned for the website Small Business Trends, Barone says most operators attempt social media marketing without a defined strategy. They also typically delegate the effort to employees ill-prepared for the task, and the result is off-target content that doesn’t create interest in the brand or drive sales. In the end, she says, operators who merely dabble in social media should expect poor results.