Are you or your company looking to increase your social media presence and are now thinking that some expert help or advice might be just what you need? Do you know how much help or media presence you need? Can you spot the con men from the truly effective social media experts?
To get you started there are 5 key social media expert claims which you should be wary of:
- “I’m an expert” – The most reliable person to judge whether someone is an expert is the client, not the consultant. Take steps to find out what others think, and how they view these self-claimed experts. Doing simple Google/social media searches can quite often give you some feedback about how people/companies are viewed. If nothing comes up in the searches then you should always ask for the details of a previous client so you can ascertain how effective and knowledgeable the consultant was.
- “You have to be on every platform!” To do this would be absolutely pointless especially when you are first starting out on social media. If you’re a small business you should also be questioning whether you have the resources to actually update every social media platform. Surely it would be more effective to use one platform effectively then to use a few ineffectively. You also need to find the platform which is right for you and not every social media platform will be. As an example, it is generally accepted that Facebook does not really work for business to business sales. This being the case, if your primary focus is business to business why would you even need a company presence on Facebook at all?
- “You need to attract lots of followers!” To say this is just far too simplistic and in fact dangerous to those first exerting their social media presence. Far more important than the number of followers is the type of followers you are attracting. You ideally want followers who both engage with you and at least in theory, are interested in what you have to offer. There is no point having 1000s of followers if they have no actual interest in your product. The more niche your product / service, the fewer followers you are likely to have but the more likely it is that they will actually be interested in your product/service of expertise.
- You have to put out updates all the time!” the key to updates is to get that balance right between continuing to generate interest and interaction about your product/service but at the same time not making your updates come across as spammy. Spammy and over frequent updates is irritating to your audience and could well lead them ultimately to unfollow you.
- I’ll manage your social media for you” – There is nothing wrong with this particular claim but you should think carefully about the implications. At Brainstorm Digital, we manage some of our clients’ social media campaigns and platforms, but wherever possible, we encourage our clients to manage it themselves (we train them how to do it effectively!). You and your employees will have an insight into your business that an external agency/social media expert won’t. You will be closer to the news content when it happens and can most likely react to a sudden or topical new announcement more quickly. It is also more cost effective to manage your social media campaigns yourself. You can hire an intern or apprentice and get them trained in the most up to date social media options both quickly and cheaply. Then they are around specifically to focus on your business’ needs.
So whatever you decide, take a step back first and think about what you actually want to achieve and what your limitations are to enable you to take that all important step forward to develop your social media campaigns.
