Hiring A Social Media Consultant:
Your Best Bet for Social Marketing Strategies
Social media strategy begins with smart planning and a depth of experience.
One smart way to jump start your social media strategy if you are delegating responsibility is to contract a social media consultant to develop your social marketing strategies for you. This can be helpful if you are using someone in-house to handle your social media plan execution, if you are hiring an intern, hiring a freelancer or hiring an entry-level marketing employee, as well. They can handle at lesat the first three steps outlined in our resource article: 8 Steps for Developing a Social Media Strategy
Be sure to communicate with your social media consultant that you want an indepth plan that anyone can implement. If you have budget constraints be sure to tell them upfront. That way he/she can develop a social media strategy that is tailored to your needs. And, it will give them the opportunity to tell you straight away whether or not your ideas are achievable, or whether you will need to rethink your strategy. A good consultant will have many different social media campaign ideas to draw upon in order to maximize your dollars in an effective way.
Things that your social media consultant will need to do.
Your social media consultant can evaluate your business, determine your needs, and set in place objectives you want to meet. He/she can determine the best social media channels for your business, the best ways to acquire your social media followers on those different channels, and determine how to translate those followers into paying customers and clients. Also, he/she can figure out the best social media strategies for reputation management and online customer service, if applicable.
Your social media consultant should take time to research the competition, find out what they are doing right and wrong, explore unique ways to reach your prospects, and evaluate your website to ensure that it can convert the prospects to customers once they get there. Depending upon what you are trying to achieve, this social media strategy report can cost you anywhere from $2,000-$5,000 or more. It is worth it, however, especially if you are not hiring a digital marketing agency to develop and implement your social media strategies. It will save you from going down an unproductive path and wasting valuable marketing dollars.
Considering your social media consultant to execute the plan.
Be aware that some social media management companies offer a free marketing plan if you commit upfront to their steep monthly retainer fees. You are better off hiring a contract social media consultant on a project basis instead. They will do a much more thorough job, particularly if they do offer social media marketing and advertising services. You can bet they will work hard to win your business for the long term. Additionally, hiring a social media consultant gives you the opportunity to get to know them better and decide if you want to spend more money with them.
If you trust them completely after reviewing their social media strategy, it makes sense to hire them. Regardless, once you have a plan, it really is a matter of finding a company you trust who can execute that plan for an amount of money you can afford.
Read the next segment in the Small Business Owner Social Media Series ======> Choosing A Social Media Agency to Implement Your Plan.
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