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5 Types of Social Media Clients

By Alex Greenwood

We view a consistent, strategic social media presence as a vital component to communications and marketing success, and often handle this area for clients. We do our level best to add value with measurable ROI. For several years, we provided social media community management services for clients in addition to creating strategy and training. Recently, we got out of the business of day-to-day social media management. However, that experience was valuable in many ways. Read on about 5 Types of Social Media Clients…

Social Media logos memeIt occurs to me that sharing the perspective of a former social media agency might be helpful to not only our colleagues, but prospective clients in understanding the most common dynamics we experience.

This is not to indict, attack or provoke–it’s just my observation of scenarios and outcomes that often occur when we engaged in a social media partnership with a brand, person or company.

Ultimately, the business relationship with clients evolves (or devolves!) into one of five categories:

  1. Hands Off. This client approved of our strategy, understood it’s not a numbers game and maintained a generally hands-off attitude while we built their brand voice in the social media sphere.
  2. Hands On. This client couldn’t help themselves. They broke into approved strategy and posted messages or content whenever the mood struck, even if it disrupted content our firm had strategically scheduled.
  3. That’s Easy! You’re Fired. After watching our firm perform the social media duties for a while, the client decided that it’s not all that hard and took it “in-house.”
  4. It’s Been A Month. Why Aren’t We Bigger? This client felt that if there is not huge growth in followers, customers beating down their door (or website) or a “viral moment” right away, you weren’t getting the job done. 
  5. We Got This. The client had a handle on their brand voice, knew the messaging they wanted to share, and learned enough from us to do their own social media successfully.

The #1’s were the clients who recognize social media is not their core competency, don’t have time to do it and trusted us to handle it. That doesn’t mean they did not have input or critiques, but they respected the business relationship and left us to go about the business of building their online brand.

Mutual frustration mounted with #2’s. We wanted clients to share all information about their brand with us, including goals, “lanes of content,” things to avoid, key messaging, customer service procedures, etc. However, when we embarked on a strategy, clients who jumped in impulsively and started posting often created a logjam of content going out nearly all at once.

For example, when we scheduled Facebook posts for 12:30 p.m. and 6 p.m. and the client started posting without checking what was scheduled (or telling us of their plans to post), we got a Facebook page with four or five posts in one afternoon. That made the brand look unfocused, diluted views on some of the posts and irritated followers who felt spammed. If it happened often, it caused a disruption of the entire social media strategy.

We saw a fair amount of #3’s. From where we sat, it looked like the company tsked tsked at their bottom line and said, “Hey, that stuff the PR firm is doing? That’s easy! Let’s give it to Matt to do. He’s what, 23? A graphic artist? He’s creative! He can do that social media stuff.” Part of that is a compliment–we did a great job and the client believed it must be easy, so they took it on.

That’s not to say we didn’t see some #3’s go on to manage their stuff just fine, but more often than not, clients who did this had a track record of performing social media consistently for about one month. Then updates becomes sporadic, lacked message cohesion and eventually halted altogether. Not good.

Going to the gym and eating right for a month is a good start, but won’t make you “buff.” Similarly, social media generally does not “blow up” in a short time. Authentic brands take their time, build trust and credibility and understand it’s a marathon, not a sprint. Ultimately, an impatient customer attitude is on us–as we have not done a adequate job of managing client expectations.

A corollary to #4 is when we must rely on the client to tell us where customers heard about them (saw it on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.), and the client neglected to do this. Web analytics can cover site visit referrers, but in retail campaigns we often must rely on clients gathering this sort of data “on the ground” to demonstrate ROI, tweak what we’re doing, etc. Help us help you!

Yup, some #2’s turn out to be #5’s, even when we think they won’t. We worked with a startup brand and the last thing they should have time for in their first year is social media. However, they made communicating to followers via social a part of their daily routine and have built a loyal, quality following.

The brand is growing quickly, and they started becoming more and more hands on with the social media. I have to admit: at first it was frustrating. However, we soon realized they know exactly what they are doing and that their brand voice was obviously more authentic and “in the moment” than one we could create. This wasn’t because we did a poor job–it’s because the brand made the time to connect with followers in an authentic, consistent way. We wished them well and take pride in the fact that we helped launch a successful new brand.

Social media isn’t a panacea. It’s a tool. When engaging a firm to manage your online presence, it’s helpful for clients to remember why they hired a firm in the first place: usually either lack of time to do the work or lack of competency with the tool. It’s also incumbent upon agencies to manage expectations well to avoid frustrating outcomes.

What do you think? Have you worked with 1’s, 2’s, 3’s, 4’s or 5’s? Or are you one of them? Please feel free to comment below and share your experiences.

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