As we close on our 11th year of business, I  reflect on the businesses we have watched over time. We have watched competitors come and go, and we have watched clients hire a miriad of Guru's to help out with their SEO, SEM, and Social Media presence. Often by the time we get told about the fallout, there is little that we can do to help.

At the moment we are seeing no end of social media gurus moving through. We have an ethos that if a client comes to us and asks us to do something that we can see will not provide positive return on investment, we will explain why and either find an alternative marketing method or not take the project. One thing that is for sure; Social Media advertising does not work for every industry, and can be a complete waste of time... especially if not undertaken properly. With that said, there are a lot of promises going around at the moment, and we are coming across a lot of cases that are concerning.

Whilst I am more that happy for a client to engage someone outside of our business and we have working relationships with other companies, often times it is worth a couple of quick checks to make sure that they have at least some experience in the field.

In no particular order, some of the things that have rung our alarm bells of late are:

1: YOU DO NOT NEED TO BE MY FRIEND TO MANAGE MY FACEBOOK PAGE!!!

After recently receiving text messages from a social media guru engaged by a long term client of ours that I need to be her friend to be able to let her be admin of a clients facebook page, I thought this one should top the list.  If your social media guru illustrates that they do not understand the basics of how facebook business pages are managed, you should probably think very hard about whether you should be paying them anything.

We once interviewed a candidate for a role in our business handling Google Analytics Accounts. When we asked him to show us how to set up a new Google account, he did not know where to go to log in. He did not get the job. Nor should someone spruiking that they are skilled in managing a social media business page  get the job if they do not know the basics of how to gain access to the page.

2: WHAT IS A FACEBOOK PIXEL??

This one is great. Whilst you do not need to have a pixel active, it certainly helps to ensure you can create your lists for remarketing. It is always interesting to see whether a Social Media Guru requests that we add the pixel or not.

3: LETS SPEND SOME MONEY BECAUSE EVERYONE ELSE IS

Whilst it is definitely important to have a social media presence, doesn't it make sense to at least track your return where possible? It seems like we are seeing no end of Gurus that are selling social packages without the client considering return on investment at all.

If you are spending $5000 per month on your social media advertising and ending up with 1000 likes and engagements after six months, no matter how you look at it or what attribution modelling you apply, each engagement has cost you $30. Roll that out into conversion cost, and you will be paying excessive amounts.  If tracked properly, maybe depending on the industry, you can make something from this, but on the whole if you are spending TONNES of MONEY for few engagements, then you need to look at whether you are spending money just because it seems like the right thing to do.

Whilst a social media manager may well be doing all the work that they said they would, and earning their money, take some time to see whether the return is there for you. If you are six months into a campaign and see little or no returns, don't be afraid to stop and allocate those funds to a different campaign. (In the example mentioned above, that $30 000 could potentially produce a larger, tracked and KNOWN return on investment in a Google Adwords campaign.)

4: PAY US TO ENGAGE WITH YOUR CLIENTS

NO! Unless you have the time to invest in a social media manager so that they can literally answer every question that may come at them, then you are wasting your money.
When we manage a campaign, we are very clear with our clients that if you engage us, you still need to do some work. It makes no sense to us for a client to pay us to be asked a question, then ask our client, then answer their client. Our client could quickly respond to the question themselves which will give a quicker response time, and also save management fees. There are expections to this rule if the budget allows, and if there is no one on staff that understands social media platforms.

5: WHAT IS RETARGETING?

Retargeting or Remarketing is one of the main reasons that we like social media as a marketing platform. It allows us to fire ads at a prospective client that we KNOW is interested in our services. If your Social Media Guru has not mentioned this to you, you should be seriously considering going back to advertising in a phone book instead of working with them. Through Remarketing / Retargeting, we are able to not only engage with people that are interested in your business directly, but also people that match their profile. This is extremely powerful, and underutilised!

I am sure that we will add to this list over time, but these 5 points should seriously be considered when choosing who is going to manage the social media face of your business. These are not here as a guide for you to give your social guru, they are here for you to know about to help you decide whether you should invest in them.

Good Luck, 

Phone Number: 0400 928 999
Email Address: mark@ienhance.com.au

Author: Mark Edwards

iEnhance was founded by Mark Edwards in 2007. Mark has directed and managed countless successful digital marketing campaigns since inception, including clients in advertising spaces such as  Telecommunication, Holiday Letting, Business Brokerages, Real Estate, and  Transportation, as well as numourous small businesses. Whilst budgets and campaign sizes can vary, Mark prides himself in the personal service that iEnhance still provides.

Initially running with a strong Search Engine Optimisation foundation, iEnhance has evolved and now looks at a digital campaign holistically. As a Certified Google Partner Mark has managed Search and Display campaigns in the Google network since the Google Partner program began and is now also Certified in Google Analytics, meaning that data and tracking is his thing.