Deciding whether a social media consultant can help meet your particular business need? Like almost every business decision, it depends on your business’s goals, budget and particular situation.

There isn’t really a narrow definition of ‘social media consultant’, some have niche specialties and can help a company’s in-house team accomplish a specific social media task. Some help companies put an overall strategy in place and then leave the execution up to the company. And others are more like off-site community managers who execute the social media tasks for the company for an undetermined amount of time.

One advantage most consultants have over agencies is that they’re typically less expensive. “If you put that same person inside of an agency, you’re adding a lot of overhead; you’re adding the corporate structure on top of it that has to be paid for as well.” Said Jason Keath, founder of social media education business Social Fresh.

Companies that are looking to fill in a specific aspect of their strategy often find hiring a consultant to be the best approach because they can seek a specific person that fits the niche they need help with. “If you have an in-house team, there may be a lot of knowledge there — and let’s say it’s digital PR knowledge,” says Keath, “but let’s say this team has never done blogger outreach before. Obviously bringing in somebody who has done blogger outreach is really going to speed up the process.”

Companies that plan to start their own in-house teams also may benefit from a consultant approach. Social media consultant Mirna Bard sees herself as an educator.

“Although an agency has results in mind, they are typically not the educators and they sometimes only look at the marketing aspect of social media,” she says. “They may also take a tactical instead of a strategic approach. Many times agencies or in-house teams are used mostly for development and execution; they are not meant to be business advisers who make overall business decisions.”

A consultant can help develop a social media strategy in line with your business objectives and play a role in teaching your in-house team how to execute it.

Source. Mashable.com

Cool Publicity has helped many businesses in Colchester implement a successful social media strategy, both in terms of establishing an effective presence and on a day to day management basis. Contact us for further information.

Marketing Week today reports that Range Rover has launched a Twitter campaign that features celebrities tweeting about its new car.

The car company has recruited the likes of model Daisy Lowe and TV presenter Ben Shepherd to drive its new Evoque 4×4 and tweet about their experiences on the social networking site.

Celebrities are now making up to £32,000 a month from being paid to promote brands and products on Twitter.

In the US, promoted tweets have to be preceded by the words “ad” or “spon,” but there are no rules in the UK that mean celebrities have to highlight messages are paid-for promoted tweets.

The likes of Snoop Dog and 50 Cent have already been utilised by a number brands through sites like Ad.Ly, a social media advertising portal which matches celebrities with brands for Promoted Tweets.

The site claims to have 5,000 celebrities on its register, with a collective reach of 100 million people.

Source: www.marketingweek.co.uk

Ben Howard of Cool Publicity believes that although celebrity endorsements are common within traditional media it is vital that authenticity is retained when communicating via social media. Genuine endorsements carry far more weight.

“Never let the size of your business become your focus. Remember small hinges swing big doors! Disney started his business from a garage and created one little mouse, next he owned a studio, then Disneyland and now Disney World. Bigger is not always better. The little mouse makes the elephant dance.”
Reverend Run*

What I like most about this is that back in 1986 when I spent the summer listening to Run DMC’s Raising Hell album, I never once thought Run would produce words that would inspire me from a business perspective 24 year later! Who needs high brow business self-help books when you’ve got Run DMC?

*I’d like to thank Phil from The Hidden Dingbat Collective for bringing this to my attention. Taken from “Words of Wisdom: Daily Affirmations of Faith from Run’s House to Yours” – Published by Amistad Press,U.S.

If you’re looking to use a social media consultant, here are a few pointers.

A social media consultant should lead by example.
A social media consultant should be able to provide evidence of first hand successes.
A social media consultant should not just ‘talk the talk’ but be able to ‘walk the walk’.

You’ll find that many consultants have been on lots of courses and read lots of websites, blogs and books, but scrape underneath the surface and you’ll find a lack of grassroots experience. That is not the case with Colchester based Cool Publicity.

Ben Howard, Managing Director of Cool Publicity, has implemented successful social media marketing campaigns for many clients, utilising Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, and is gaining a great reputation as the consultant who rolls up his sleeves and makes things happen.

For further information call Cool Publicity on 01206 542142 or 07540 664971 or email info@coolpublicity.co.uk

Google has announced that it’s real-time search results will now include updates from Facebook pages. However, the updates will only be from Facebook pages: such as fan pages, celebrities and businesses, of which there are approximately 3 million.

Status updates from all 300 million Facebook users will not be included.

It’s another reminder to organisations using Facebook for marketing purposes that the updates need to be relevant. Don’t mix official updates with your personal ones; you could find them highly ranked on the search engines!

The growth of Twitter is clear to see from data issued by its analytics team.

Launched in 2007 – approx 5,000 tweets per day
2008 – approx 30,000 per day
2009 – approx 35 million per day
and now, as reported, it’s hit the 50 million mark.

From my perspective, the announcement from Twitter’s vice president of communications stating 20% of tweets contain a reference to a brand or product, was of great interest. It shows that if used properly, Twitter can be an effective marketing tool.

Here we go!  After forming Cool Publicity in December 2009, and spending my time working hard for my first batch of clients, I’ve finally sorted out the website.

I took the line of least resistance by building it in WordPress. I always stress to clients that effective marketing does not have to be expensive, and that it is now to accessible to all, and this proves it. The cost to me has been my time over the weekend but that’s it. By choosing a template and tinkering around with some plugins, and some advice from Cool Publicity’s design collective, I have a working website. I’ve also added Google Analytics to enable me to access web analytics so I look forward to monitoring response.

WordPress and Google Analytics are just two of many great, and free, resources to help you spread the word of the great work you do. Cool Publicity is here to help you do just that.

Ben Howard

Cool Publicity, based in Colchester, Essex, helps organisations, charities, venues, promoters, musicians and artists get their voice heard using both traditional and modern marketing, PR and publicity techniques, including social media.

The last 2 years has seen a decline in many marketing budgets but, according to latest research, marketing budgets for 2010 have been set higher in comparison to 2009. Confidence is returning and with businesses seeing improved prospects, organisations are looking to increase their marketing activity.

Cool Publicity provides the resource to resume and implement marketing without the commitment of employing a full time marketing manager.

Cool Publicity is available to help you for as few or as many hours you need each month, and at affordable hourly, half day and full day rates.

Spread the word via Cool Publicity.