Don’t Get Screwed! 5 Tips for Choosing the Right Social Media Consultant

Jump in the Social Media Pool – The water is Perfect!

Everywhere you look your competitors are jumping in on the social media bandwagon. Even your plumber, and housekeeper have facebook fan pages for their business. You’ve decided it’s time to jump in and figure out what Social Media is all about.

Learning social media is a lot like swimming, jump in too soon, too fast, or just after eating and you might just drown. Better hope that there’s a social media cpr certified medical squad to bring you back.

One reason many companies fail to join the social media craze, is because many view it as some sort of fad.

Well a bit of news for you – SOCIAL MEDIA is a FAD! It’s the next big thing, everyone’s doing it and there’s loads of money to be had for all! I say this in that everyone is jumping on board, and many are drowning. Believe it or not there are drowning people out there in social media, who are trying to each others to swim, while they themselves are drowning. Self-professing your expertise in social media, does not make you a social media expert – just as sticking feathers up your rear does not make you a chicken.

MORAL: Buyer beware, but still be excited.

Social media is exciting. Everyday new technologies are forming around the social web. Applications like foursquare and gowalla that let your friends know what businesses you’re in. Right now many social networks and mobile developers are gearing up for what they’re calling the Location Wars. Mobile apps are currently in development that will use your actual location for a range of things from augmented reality role-playing games, to finding the closest bathroom, to finding and choosing a new restaurant, and even letting you know what stores nearby are having specials.

With that said I will show you some criteria you should look for when seeking out a Social Media Consultant.

1. Google them. Who needs to pay for background checks in the age of social media. If they are truly a good social media consultant, and marketer. Then they will be marketing themselves as well. If they own a business google their business. If there aren’t very many results in google for their name, or business name then they’re obviously not very popular, definitely not very successful, and certainly not worth the money.One tip when googling: Be sure to use parenthesis. Example type “Patrick Curl” in google and see what you find.
2. Follow the tweets. Number of followers, and tweets is not a guarantee on the value of a person’s social media prowess, but it’s a good indicator. You’d be a bit naive to take social media advice from someone with less than 1,000 followers on twitter, and only 5-10 tweets total. You want a social media superstar, an evangelist. You want someone who is passionate about any and everything there is to offer in the world of social media.
3. Ask them for references, and case studies. If they can really deliver for your business, then they must’ve done it for someone else before. The only exception here is if they’re admittedly striking out as a consultant for the first time, and are just building up their experience. If this is the case, most of the time you’ll probably get a better deal, they’re needing your business, and your testimonial to show that they can do what they say they can. If they don’t deliver, then getting more clients won’t be easy.It’s not always a bad choice to go with someone who is new to the industry if they show potential. Sure it could be a risk, but they could also undersell the competition because they’re more needing of the job, and the references. They are also more passionate about making you happy, so that you give them a good review, or testimonial. I’d rather hire someone who is 30% social media genius and 70% passionate social media evangelist, than the other way around.
4. Get the stats: Real success stories have numbers to back them up. Every social media consultant has a blog, it’s very possible their website / blog is where you found out about them in the first place. If they don’t have a website run away and run fast!Building a successful blog is a lot of work, and getting to the top of the search engines is extremely daunting. However, it’s not impossible, and it’s not too much to ask to find someone who has at least some search engine optimization skills. You need to know where their blog / website ranks on sites like Alexa, and Google. One good tool to use is PopURI I’ve found it’s not always 100% accurate on backlinks, and some of the results, but it does a good job of pulling Alexa rank and Google pagerank. There’s also other tools out there that are probably better, I personally use some firefox and google chrome plugins that are amazing when it comes to viewing a site’s website statistics, and will write about them at a later time.Now you don’t need to be too harsh here, this is one area we all can improve on, and if their website is new then it may take some time to build up a web presence for it – if it is new ask if there’s any other sites that they’ve built or own. You just want to know that they have at least one site with at least a google pagrank of 2 and an alexa rank under 1 Million. This isn’t too hard, if you only get 4-500 hits per day then your website should be at an alexa rank of 200-300k give or take.
5. Meet with them in person, or over the phone if they’re out of the area. Ask them some questions, find out what they might do in certain situations relating to social media. This is your chance to interview them to see if they will be a fit for the job. Remember also that just because someone is talented at social media doesn’t mean they can perfectly represent any brand. If you’re a democrat running for office, you might want to look for a social media consultant who shares the same political belief. If you’re business is oriented around sports, for instance if you’re business is a business relating to nascar collectibles, then you might want to try and find someone who at least knows a little about Nascar.Part of them building your social media presence may include them writing blog posts for you, and to write good posts they need to be able to familiarize themselves with the material.

One last tip when choosing a social media consultant – set yourself a budget. Set a budget on what you’re willing to pay them, you could do some research around to see what other consultants charge, a good going rate is $500 for initial consultation, and thorough social media profile overhaul. This should include: Updating all your online profiles, or setting up new ones; inter-linking all social profiles so that they talk to each other; building your blog, which should be the hub of all your social media efforts; training you on what you can personally do to help with the social media.

A good consultant is one who not only does the social media optimization but one who teaches the client how to fish. You may choose to use them one time to setup a strategy for your social media marketing, or you may choose to hire them full-time to be your company social media community manager. Either way is up to you, and depends on how much time and money you have to invest, if you have plenty of time, and not so much money then the first option may apply, if your time is your weakest asset, but money is not an issue then the second option may be what you’re looking for. Also note that there may be some costs associated with social media above the consultant fee, for instance if you’re going to buy ads on facebook, or twitter, you’ll need to add this into your final social media budget. You may also benefit from creating a social media app, in which case you may need to hire, or work with the consultant to find someone who can develop the application, this is just another cost that could go into your total social media tally.

You’ve made a big decision to get your feet wet in social media, being prepared and not rushing in is the best surefire way to make sure that you don’t get screwed. Having a bad social media consultant CAN not only slow your growth, but can actually give your business bad PR, which is the total opposite of what you’re trying to accomplish.  Don’t worry though, the water is warm, and there’s many people in this industry out here ready to lend a hand. Social media is a baby industry, we’re all still learning how to swim to some degree, even the best social media consultants are constantly learning more and more about the industry and finding new tools.

It’s safe to say a new social media app is developed probably every few minutes. Apps for facebook, twitter, myspace, linkedin, and more. They’re everywhere you look, and it is the future of the web, and the world. The way we communicate with others is changing forever. It’s an exciting time to be in marketing, but if you don’t get in now, your competition WILL!

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