You think you want to hire a social media coach eh? Cool, I like to hear that, but first let's talk about you. What do you want to get out of this relationship? Are you going to be as committed to your success as I am? What resources do you have available in manpower, time, content or the ability to create content? Why do you think social media is going to help your business succeed? Do you "need social media" because somebody told you you did or do you have a good idea of the value proposition it can offer you and your company?
These are a few of the questions every business should have asked themselves before they look to hire a social media coach, a consultant or social media management team. Sure, we can help you reach your goals but first we have to define them. Then we have to decide if social media tools can help meet those goals. After all that then we can talk about a strategy to achieve your goals in a realistic fashion.
So, before you send that email or pick up a phone to hire someone to "do social media" for your company take a look at these reasons you shouldn't.
- You have no clearly defined reason, you just think you need to "do social media".
- Your company is floundering and this is the last chance for you to do marketing cheap.
- You plan to hire someone to create a strategy for you and then hand it off to a 19 year old intern who has a Facebook page and knows nothing about business or marketing and has a full time job doing something else.
- You hired someone to manage social media for you in-house and gave them a silly name like "Master of Social Evangelism" indicating you couldn't care less and it's all a waste of time.
- You don't have time to create content around what you do, you expect people to just guess.
- You've spent thousands of dollars on software because you thought you needed it but then never took the time to learn it and now it's failed you.
- Your competitor is "Tweetering" and they're getting lots of leads.
- Your expect a social media manager to produce the content and then market it for you but you're not going to give them any information about what you do or why you're better than your competitors.
- You expect your YouTube infomercial to "go viral" without a marketing strategy.
- You think Facebook fans and Twitter followers will flock to your brand in droves as soon as you launch a page and you can auto feed press releases to them and they'll LOVE it.
Now for all you social media pros who got this far in the post. Add your favorites to the list, we can all learn