Upon talking to my first potential client in the late 90′s about developing a brochure site, (I didn’t have a clue) I distinctly remember him telling me a few things that make me chuckle today. He told me that not only were they not going to buy any more computers, but the significant investment he made in the one “computer in the back” was going to have to last them 10 years. (That would have been 2009) He then told me that he would have to wait on a website cause the few hundred dollars I was going to charge him was not worth the chance, because “Who knew if websites were going to stick.” He said “I have seen a lot of things come and go son” and that was it.
I do not seem to meet this level of hesitation about social media these days but I do find it. Of course I do not talk to business owners daily anymore so it could be that they are this brash in their declarations of what they would deem nonsensical technology. I doubt it, but I do see them taking the same road, asking a son, daughter or employee who might have a social media account or two, to run the social media for their company. Social media for businesses is so much more than that. Think of it as asking someone off the street to run all new ad campaigns for your business. What about if you asked one of your new hires to write a mission statement you were going to use from here on out? Wouldn’t make much sense would it?
A good social media expert should be a great writer. I know you have read something on Facebook that made no sense. A business says they are having a “Half Off Sales Today Only” or notice a typo in a response to a sensitive post. These things matter to the people reading your social accounts, and they should matter to you.
A good social media expert should be accessible during your most important business times. Like company functions, promotions etc. These things should be documented. Your customers and patrons should know you are thinking about them on Christmas, Thanksgiving, even Wednesday.
What about Facebook App development? Did you know if you run a contest on Facebook without an app you are risking your Facebook account being deleted without notice? Could you imagine, running a contest, trying to get new likes and boom, your page is gone? All those new likes and time spent, all money wasted. So that person should be able to work with apps, and possibly code html. Oh yeah and recently Facebook mandated they all Apps have to be housed on secure servers, so add SSL knowledge as well.
If you find a company that can do it for you that is great, a lot of times a company can run a campaign for you and you meet 1-2 times a month to go over marketing plans and its done for you. However if a retainer to a marketing agency is not in your budget (It is not as bad as you think) you will have to hire someone in house. Your social media expert should be a techy PR writer and app developer and they should be working for you now, not 10 years from now.
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