How to Hire a Social Media Marketing Consultant

There’s no getting around it: social media marketing is an absolute must for small businesses and brands.

Never before has there been such an incredibly useful set of tools to talk directly to your customers and interact with prospects.

While the tools may change, (Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr) the principles of being able to converse with your customers are here to stay.

The Rise of The Marketing Consultant

With the rise of social media marketing comes the rise of the social media marketing experts.

While social media seems like a case of “sign up and start using,” mastering it for marketing is a whole different story.

Often small businesses don’t have the know-how or resources to successfully implement social media marketing. You can free up a lot of time and energy by outsourcing to a marketing consultant who has worked within your market and can help you effectively reach your customers and leads.

Finding the Perfect Match

If you want to get your business mixed into the social media hype and need some help, here are a few questions to ask to determine if your consultant is a perfect match.

1. How long have you been using social media and why?

Hopefully your marketing consultant was an early adapter who understood early on how important social media was going to become.

1. What do you use social media for personally and why?

Besides sharing humorous images and motivational jpegs, a good consultant will show you how they have used and continue to use social media for business.

1. Besides social media, what background do you have?

If a marketing consultant is helping you with your marketing, well, they need to have a background in promotion or marketing in some shape or form.

1. Do you blog?

This should be a no-brainer! But is their blog well-designed and well-visited?

1. What have your measurable results been from using social media?

Did the consultants’ business increase? Did they have various PR opportunities? Were they able to recruit people or expand their network?

1. Does my business need to be on every site?

If the answer is “yes,” you should be seeing warning signs. Bottom line: you probably don’t need to be on every site, only the ones where your clients and potential leads are networking.

1. How much is it going to cost to set up my social media accounts?

These costs should be included in the consulting fee if you don’t have social media accounts set up yet. The main thing is nobody should be charging an arm and a leg to set up your accounts. Looking for a well-designed Twitter background? Yes, that will cost a bit. But setup should be included. The real expertise comes from knowing how to optimize accounts and avoiding all those common little mistakes.

1. Have you created content yourself?

A good marketing consultant should be able to show you relevant examples from their portfolios and profiles.

1. Do I need to stop my other advertising or marketing?

If the answer to this is “yes,” be very wary. Every business is different and traditional advertising may still be a big part of your brand. Other forms of marketing like events, can be integrated and amplified with social media. What’s more, social media is merely one component of the online marketing world. Other important elements include SEO and even pay-per-click campaigns depending on your goals.

1. Will social media fix my business?

Again, if you get “yes” as an answer, this should set off warning bells. Social media can help to amplify your business, but it’s not a quick-fix.

1. Can you guarantee followers?

If a marketing consultant can quantify this, run a mile. Yes, with various principles applied, your followers will come. But guaranteeing them is a little sketchy.

1. How do you measure ROI?

If you’re not keeping score, how are you going to know what you’re doing right and what needs work? There are a myriad of soft analytics that can be used: retweets; amount of followers; blog traffic; sentiment (how people feel about your brand); website traffic and Facebook comments. But it’s the hard analytics that matter on your finance sheet. That is, total sales prior to social media vs. percentage increase after using it or amount of new email subscribers from social media that led to sales.

1. Do I need a social media plan writing out?

The answer here should be yes. Your marketing consultant should be able to help you determine deliverables, goals and even room for experimentation.

1. Do you have examples of how we can generate PR with social media?

If you’re hearing terms like “traditional press release,” get your running shoes on. Online relationships are a completely different breed and must be based on genuine relationships.

1. Is social media free?

This is a trick question! Of course, the services are free to use but no matter how much automation you put on them, human time needs to be invested.

Will Your Marketing Consultant Keep Up With Your Growing Business?

The bottom line is social media is regularly evolving. Best practices are starting to evolve out of social marketing and the bigger picture of online marketing.

Finding the right marketing consultant for you and your business is an invaluable resource for your business’s future.

Rosy Marketing offers integrated marketing solutions for small businesses, social enterprises and start-ups. Our range of services include research, strategy and support to take your business to new heights. Get in touch today for a free consultation.

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