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.

Comments are closed.