Social Media Marketing

Lessons from Our Clients

For many people, social media is still misunderstood. We use it every single day and to the irritation of most employers, all day! While this is the case, people are still intrigued by the concept of social media marketing (SMM). Concepts like search engine optimization (SEO), pays per click (PPC) and landing pages are so familiar in our industry, but to our clients, they are a completely foreign notion.  So many consumers find it hard to grasp on the new era of marketing and wonder what happened to the days of classic phone book ads (which I can barely remember).

I met with some clients, Dave and Mary, last week. Dave has been working his niche cabinet business for over 30 years. Mary has recently decided to throw her hat in the ring and join full time as well. My team and I have had to spend copious amounts of time teach them the vocabulary of the Social Media industry, just so they can comprehend what they are paying us for. When pondering the amount of time we had to commit to explaining these words and processes to them, a few interesting thoughts came to my mind

Am I losing a profit center for not billing the consulting time necessary?

No. Clients understanding what we do isn’t going to happen overnight. No one is going to pay for a service that they don’t understand. With this client, and every client, we are investing in a long-term relationship that would eventually cover the few extra dollars consulting would bring in.

What do I say when poor reviews are plaguing local companies?

Poor reviews from people looking for discounted work when you have been providing amazing service for 30 years are incredibly disheartening. Hiring a reputation management company for $10,000 a month to try and get those poor reviews buried are just not worth it. Get your current clients to review you anywhere they like and continue to provide the impeccable quality of work you have been for the last 30 years. The poor reviews of a couple discount chasers should not be able to cause a real and genuine businesses to suffer.

What is one thing that I want even the most uninformed client to understand about social media?

Social Media is primarily a tool used for messaging, branding and identity. It should not be considered a direct ROI generator for most businesses. We are careful to make no promises of returns or results. I have never sold a client because of empty promises. When social media becomes too sales driven and not service driven, value is lost. We would be failing at the idea of SOCIAL media. We want people to share cool posts and projects because they are genuinely interested in them. WE want to grow likes for a company within a demographic that will buy from them, not just anyone who will click. I want my clients to trust that every day we are working on their behalf to help them create a unique message and brand. That is what social media marketing is meant for.