The other day, I was in a meeting with a group of very smart people and we were talking about how to discern a ‘great’ social media consultant from a ‘mediocre’ social media consultant. I’ve never really considered myself a social media consultant, though. I’ve always thought of myself in a more integrated way, since I’ve spent my marketing career working online AND offline and being part of product development as much as promotional campaigns. Even the term ‘community marketing’ that I usually use to describe my practice falls short.
Even so, I believe the job of Social Media Consultant entails using the online social media tools available to spread the word – much like PR does for traditional media – to pick up steam for the brands they represent. This, of course, is a very smart business to get into, especially during these turbulent economic times. Social media tools are inexpensive and are quite easy to measure impact for. I particularly like tools like HubSpot and Google Analytics for measuring impact of social media campaigns, as well as tracking word of mouth through Twitter’s search and Google Blogsearch. There are many other tools available, as outlined here by my colleague, Jeremiah. This makes a Social Media Consultant a sound investment as an adjunct to any other form of marketing you are embarking on. It’s also a safe bet when budgets get cut back as it is more cost effective than many other types of marketing.
Still, how does one know who is a ‘good’ consultant and a ‘mediocre’ one? I think it all comes down to Whuffie.
Much like a PR person worth her weight in gold has many contacts and a good reputation in the traditional media circles, a social media consultant (SMC) worth her weight in gold has many contacts and a good reputation in online communities. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the SMC has the MOST contacts, either. It’s how people talk about her, how she interacts and how the things she posts are spread around. A good SMC will have high Whuffie on the web. People will trust her opinion. Other influential people will value her expertise. The reason that quality is as important as quantity is that her Whuffie will rub off on her clients. If she is trusted for what she talks about, her connections will be more likely to check out who she is representing.
Anyone can be a SMC, really. There are millions of people of all ages using the online tools and hundreds of thousands of them use them effectively. But to be a kickass SMC, you need to be an influencer yourself. This isn’t much different from PR. And, in both cases, it matters who you represent.
Social media, just like any other type of marketing, is only as good as the response you get from customers. A good SMC knows her stuff and understands what the market will respond to. She will be honest with you in early meetings if she knows your product needs work to delight potential customers. You deserve that. You don’t want to spend a bunch of money and energy on a campaign that goes nowhere. You should be spending that time and money on building a really awesome product. And, a good marketing professional, social media or not can help you in that realm as well. I’ve actually spent more of my career working on product development and innovation than I have on the promotion of it. The truth is, great products need less promotion and ‘stick’ when you do promote.
Lastly, an SMC you want to hire practices ethical marketing. Much related to the point about having influence in a community, ethical marketing practices maintain and build integrity within communities. Anything that smacks of lying or tricking people will be found out and both your company and your SMC will pay the price Whuffie-wise. Future campaigns will be looked upon as suspect and time and money spent will be for naught.
I take great care in working with clients – who I’m working with and how I’m promoting them. I make sure that what I’m delivering is of value and that my connections won’t feel spammed or get tired of the type of media that I’m sharing with them. If my own quality slips, the interest from my connections slips and I become less useful to current and future clients who deserve the positive word of mouth. There are clients I have taken on who have potential, but were not ready for promotion – so we focused on product and getting to the point where we could both be proud of what we were sharing with our connections. Other potential clients who wanted the promotion, but wouldn’t do the work to make sure people I introduced to their products would be delighted, had to be passed over. In today’s competitive landscape, I was sorry to see them pass up the opportunity.
Thus, if you want to have your SM campaigns go further, assess your SMC on these three measurements:
- How much influence does he/she have in online communities?
- Does he/she understand market trends? What kind of feedback does he/she give on your product? Are there good ideas in there?
- Does he/she practice ethical marketing? If he/she suggests that you can pay people to digg up an item, probably not.
Other than that list, an SMC has to understand how to use the tools, know how to measure impact and how to get creative to get through the noise that is the thousands of campaigns already inundating people in online communities. But it isn’t necessarily getting through that counts. It is how that message is received on the other side. That outcome is going to mean results or rejection.
Great Post! Best line…But to be a kickass SMC, you need to be an influencer yourself. Wish I wrote this blog post!
I think that the smartest thing to take from this piece is when you said that you insisted on fixing a client’s product/website/whatever before the promotion took place. Totally agree. And, having to pass on jobs for clients who don’t want to spend the time/energy to fix up what they have. Again, so very true.
Kudos for putting ETHICS as a core criteria. It should be first on the list for anyone touching social media.
Hi. I’m sorry, but I don’t agree with you.
I think you are referring to a Social Media Opinion Leader or a Social Media Influencer.
I think a SMC should, in first place, know how to use the right tools to promote a service, product or brand online, using ethical methods. As a SMC you can’t have good reputation in all online communities, because, the most probably is that you only have a presence in some online communities.
For instance, imagine that some company wants to promote a product targeted to children from 8 to 12 on online communities. Do you think that they will find any ethical SMC with a good reputation on online communities for this target? Or imagine that is a product targeted for bikers? And so on. Do you get my point? Don’t you agree?
@HugoNS
The long tail for SMC springs to mind.
Knowing the tools are the easy part, makin’ the whuffie for a specific niche is the hard part.
I know in my case I only take on certain types of projects where I have enough knowledge and reputation, otherwise it’s not really fair on anyone (and I end up getting bored!)
I’m of the opinion that people should not take on any work that they don’t specialise in *or* they work very closely with someone who has the knowledge/reputation/whuffie.
I’m in the position where I get to choose what projects I work on. Sometimes this means I’m poor financially, but I have more chance of being loaded with whuffie in the longer term (by working on the stuff that I really want to do).
@Rosie
Let me rephrase what i have said in my last comment.
For me, first of all, a good SMC should know how to use social media tools, and believe me, when i say there are plenty of SMC out there, that don’t know how to use it correctly.
Then, of course I think, a SMC has to have an excellent and profound knowledge and understanding of the online communities where he/she want’s to promote something.
But where i disagree with you is that a SMC should only accept projects where he/she have enough reputation/whuffie. I think that, for instance, you could have an excellent knowledge about MySpace, without having an excellent reptutation/whuffie in MySpace.
Or imagine the example that I gave in my last comment, do you think there is any SMC with a good reputation in online communities for children from 8 to 12?
Again, I think you are speaking about a Social Media Opinion Leader, or Social Media PR, but, in my opinion not about a Social Media Consultant.
Hear hear on the ethics and also transparency. If your SMC won’t tell you what they are doing to achieve the goals you set it’s likely there is some not so ethical things going on.
Great post.
I love discussing the subject of “paying for posts on digg”. I have never done this, but find the discussion of this type of online promotion very interesting. I go back and forth on it. It is easy to label something like that as “unethical”. But when you break it down, you would be paying someone, with access to a media platform, to promote your sales/marketing/promotion content. How is that different from paying a PR person with great access to Home and Garden, or paying a SMC with great access to a list of bloggers? I see both sides. It is a brave new world of online marketing.
Enjoyed the post.
I love this article but what I wanted to know too is the difference between hiring a PR person over a SMC because a few PR professionals that I’ve met are talking as if they also include that element of social media consulting as well, so it is a crime to decide to go with just one person to handle it all?
for my site thecocktailcafe.com, I aim to reach parents in a non-traditional way in that I wanted to create a place that you could go to during your lunch hour and get great tips, fashion finds for less, celebrity parent and their babies etc., but do I run the risk of watering down my initial goal when I start advertising myself?