- Thinking of running a social media campaign?
- Planning to hire a social media consultant to run your campaign for you?
- Worried that you might be throwing good money after bad?
Before a contract is signed and money has parted hands, you should be asking your social media consultant five basic questions:
- What is their objective for your campaign? E.g. To raise awareness of your brand, to engage with your customers..etc… “Getting more followers” is simply not an adequate answer
- What themes will the campaign be centred around? E.g. If you’re an interior designer, will the campaign focus on affordable design, design ideas or DIY?
- Who will the campaign be targeting? For your campaign to be a success it needs to be targeted at a particular audience. E.g. An interior designer may be targeting architects, or other interior designers. Simply targeting anyone, everyone or someone will not get results.
- How will the success of your campaign be measured? Your consultant should be able to send you regular stats to show how many people clicked on links, and who mentioned you. They will also be able to advise you on other tools such as using your website statistics to measure how many visitors came from your social media campain.
- Finally, show me the money! Social media is a slow burn, but your consultant should have a long-term plan of action id how the campaign will ultimately bring you business. It’s not an exact science, but based on previous experience, they should be able to give you a rough forecast of what to expect after 3, 6 and 9 months. E.g. After 6 months, we will have built relationships with a number of your followers and we will work on converting them into customers. Your consultant should also be able to advise you on what network is most likely to bring your business.
Finally, be wary of low-cost operators offering to run your campaign for a small monthly fee of say £50-£150. Running a successful campaign takes not only time, but also effort. To build up a high quality following that will engage with your brand takes regular daily updates, and constant interaction with new followers. That all adds up to at least half a days work per month, unlikely if you are paying such a small amount.
