Is your company looking for creative ways to reach your customers?
Do you just find out that your competitors’ last Press Release is about a Social Media campaign?
Is a Social Media Consultant telling you that he/she can establish your company’s presence on specific social networks for a mere $150-$500/h?
In a post by Jennifer Leggio in ZDNet, Social media consultants: snake oil or value add?, Jennifer explained why you should not believe everything that a Social Media Consultant is telling you. This is some parts of her post:
“Social media consultancy, for the most part, has gone the way of the snake oil salesman. While there are many qualified business consultants who can help a company leverage social networking as part of its overall strategy, there are far too many who are selling their services based on the ability to help establish a company’s presence on specific social networks. Many of these consultants have been successful building their own personal brand, however, prowess for personal brand building does not prove an understanding of enterprise business needs.
Companies need to stop believing the hype that social media is an “everything drug.” It’s not. It’s a strategy that needs to be considered and tailored to fit specific business needs.”
That’s right on!
At rSitez, we have worked with Consultants that understand the value of Social Networking as part of the overall strategy of a brand and this realtionships were great. Unfortunately, we also have worked with Consultans that completely mislead their customers in what a Social Network can do for them.
In order to help, let copy some questions from Jennfier before you hire a Social Media Consultant,
Ask yourself:
- What is the profile of your ideal customer / sales prospect?
- Where are these ideal customers / prospects spending their time online? (Note: It might be worth purchasing a market research study on your customer demographic and Web presence before hiring a consultant)
- What are other companies in your space doing? Can you get your hands on success metrics?
- How educated is your management team when it comes to Web presence and Internet branding? If you push them hard to sell the concept, what measures must you take to prove value?
- Can you do any of this for free? Are there people on your team or other teams who are social media savvy who would love the visibility of a cutting edge project?
- Can you really measure the ROI of what is being recommended? If it’s not clear, how else will you measure success?
You need to realize how Social Networking fit in your overall startegy and be willing to give part of your marketing control. Are your ready? Any anecdote with Social Media Consultants?
Social Media Blog 
It is a good material to read, learn and understand about media consultants. Was very helpful.
excellent material i found it very amusing and also help me with some research i am making recently.
I can see through this election cycle how important social media consultants are becoming. We are headed for a massive change in how we view commerce and the Social Media will be a big part.
While I believe that social media consultants are improtant, it is beneficial to know that you should be cautious who you are hiring. If you are paying good money, you should be sure you are getting what you pay for.
thank for this great information!!
I didn’t realize, until this election campaign, how important theSocial Media has become. I believe that we are just seeing the tip of the iceburg.
Excellent information, really helpful and an interesting read. Thanks a lot!
Social Media Consultancy is nothing more than propaganda. As people have commented before, this election is just marred in misinformation.
Wow! this is very excellent article.Thanks for giving this article.It is really usefull and helpfull.
“Social media consultancy, for the most part, has gone the way of the snake oil salesman.”
so so true
The need for a social networking consultancy seems a bit odd. I agree with the idea that a customer base can be gained through the utilization of social networks, but a normal business consultancy should be able to provide that with its other services.
There are some industries where social media exposure just won’t work. Last summer I worked an intership in a very highly specific corner of the health care industry… the type of company that the average consumer wouldn’t understand, let alone know that it existed. B2B companies would have similar problems getting value out of social neworking sites. But still, companies try to shoehorn themselves into net presences in the strangest and most inappropraite places. My niche company last summer was interested in viral marketing and tried to gain some interest on Digg, for example. I bet they would have blown a good 30,000 bucks on a social networking consultant had they but known they existed!
Considering the risk / reward continuum, this is a no-brainer.
I didn’t realize, until this election campaign, how important theSocial Media has become. I believe that we are just seeing the tip of the iceburg.
This was an interesting article about social media. You can learn a lot from it. My opinion is that we can’t trust media, exactly said I don’t trust them, but the article is very very good!
Excellent information, really helpful and an interesting read. Thanks a lot!
I work for a online company named ChaCha that uses social networking based advertising through clients such as Coca-Cola and Fifth Third banks that targets a certain age group. Great read and I really enjoyed both sides.
Hi Tyler, thanks for the comment. I liked ChaCha services and I read that its answering service is doing pretty well. Nice job!