5 Factors in Hiring a Social Media Consultant

Do you know how to hire a consultant? Inner Architect’s focus is Social Media Marketing based on the integration of social media channels with direct marketing  strategies. We focus on producing positive measurable results for our clients.

You are a COO, Marketing Director, or business owner and you are in charge of creating, executing, and maintaining a social media marketing plan. You understand the following challenges in executing this task:

• Time: you do not have the time to execute and maintain your company’s social media marketing plan
• Expertise: you do not have the expertise to leverage Twitter, Facebook, Google+, blogging, or mobile applications
• Expense: you do not have the budget to hire, train, and pay benefits to  new employees to execute your marketing plan

What Are You Getting From Your Social Media Consultant?

What are you getting when you hire a social media consultant to run your company’s social media marketing efforts?

1. Goals: have you identified your goals? Do you want to drive traffic to a brick n mortar? Are you looking for ecommerce online store traffic? Is your firm interested in protecting brand recognition and reputation? Are you tasked with growth?
2. Strategy: do you have a specific strategy that you want the consultant to execute?
3. Plan of Action: did you receive a written plan of action from your consultant on how they will achieve your desired goals?
4. ROI Measurement: Is your consultant explaining how he/she will measure their efforts within the chosen social networks to provide a clear picture of the ROI for your investment in their services?
5. Progress Reports: Has your consultant set up a schedule of regular reports detailing their progress?

3 Ultimate Reasons Your Company’s Social Media Marketing Plan is Failing

Are you a CMO, business owner,  or entrepreneur tasked with hiring a social media consultant? Have you carefully researched your brand’s goals and received buy-in from all decision makers? Have you identified a group of candidates to hire and vetted the group down to a final candidate? Are you now ready to turn the keys over to your new hire? If you answered yes to these questions then you just made a fatal mistake that will leave your new social media consultant’s marketing plans in disarray with ineffective results.

 3 Reasons Why You Are Failing in Your Social Media Marketing Efforts

Are You Ready to Participate? Are you ready to provide the critical cooperation and help to your consultant to ensure success? Are you ready to authorize:

• Enterprise Involvement: do you demand that your employees know and support your company’s social media marketing plan? Do you allow your consultant to brief participating staff on your social media action plan?
• Measurement: gathering intelligence from your customers is critical. Do you require your staff probe brick n mortar visitors or online visitors for information on which channel(s) provided the motivation for their visit ie. Twitter, Facebook, mobile, email, postal literature, telesales, catalog
• Database Integration: are you ready to bring your chosen data points such as  eCommerce, telesales, email, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, mobile all together in order to create life-time value for your consumers in each marketing channel?

Conclusion

Are you ready to take responsibility for your organizations’ marketing success by demanding employee participation in the social networks? The most successful company social media marketing programs begin with a top to bottom buy-in of social media, willingness to spread the word, and understanding of what is at stake in today’s digital landscape: company growth, reputation management, customer engagement, and brand perception.