Understanding Your Client

Understanding Your Client For every social media administrator understanding their clientele and their various needs has to be job number one. So important is this topic that it could have been either the first or the last chapter of this eBook. Fortunately, the information is not technical at all and sides more along the lines of a detailed conversation or conference between parties. But ‘Understanding Your Client’ can become such a multifaceted issue that many social media administrators will need some form of guidance as to how to engage new and current clients.

Luckily, that is what we are here for. Clients have a business or product that needs marketing, but do you have a feel for your client's knowledge and perspective of this digital age? Clients really just want to know that social media can build their business and make money! Trying to put social media into an easy to understand box is nearly impossible and as social media administrators, you will continue to come across clients that really don't have a clue what it stands for. That would be the first issue. Many clients you will come across have had their businesses or have established their brand for decades, critically, with limited or no help from technology. But during the course of everyday life, clients might do something as simple as sending emails or check Facebook and then decide that maybe social media could be somewhat useful to their business.

This is unfortunately where the disconnect can begin. When speaking with your potential clients, it would behoove you to avoid using language that will be sure to confuse. It would be a mistake to try to put social media in an easy to understand box while explaining it for your clientele. Keep it simple and highlight where exactly you feel your service could help. After finding out your prospective client’s company’s or brand’s goals, your next course of action is to do a social media audit. An audit reviews all social media assets, compares them to company goals and metrics, and then determines if changes need to be made. On a simpler level, an audit can simply be a review of activity to ensure the client is following best practices. A social media audit can occur in line with major business milestones, such as before a product or advertising campaign launch, after an acquisition, or when someone new, aka you - the social media administrator, joins the marketing team. Now based on this audit and several consultations with your client you should be able to answer the following questions: Who do you want to reach? Why? Are you using the right social platform to reach them? What motivates your audience? Are you publishing content that speaks to those motivators? What is your end goal? Sales? Reach? Leads? Are you accomplishing that goal? Why or why not? What can you change or enhance to be more successful?

Success in social media only comes after careful introspection so special care should be made to avoid: Using Overly Promotional Content - Remember it’s about your audience – not you. Lacking Conversation - Are you ignoring your fans or are you proactively reaching out to them? Forgetting to Monitor - Are you listening to what is being said about your brand? Don’t let dialog about your company or product happen without you. Assuming Everyone Cares - Do you understand your audience, and are you giving them what they want or are you feeding them what you want them to see? Nobody cares about your company, brand or product unless you give them a reason to care. Missing the Incentive to Like - Are you giving people a reason to “like” or follow you, or are you just regurgitating boring content that can be found all over the internet? Lacking Creativity - Just because you’re working with a business page, doesn’t mean it has to be boring. People crave content that is fun, sparks controversy, or opens the door to conversation. Your social media followers don’t want a news feed or an advertisement. These decisions can only be made if there is a synergy between the social media admin and the client which indicates some form of understanding of business goals and achievable targets. Social media is all about content. Finding out what content your client has used in the past, how they’ve used it, and the resources they’ve allocated to it will help you leverage what’s working and identify new opportunities to test in your campaigns. As a social media administrator, you also need to know what are the clients themselves bringing to the table to make sure you’ve got all the content information you need to do the job effectively, such as: What resources do you have available for content creation?

What is your workflow process for content from inception to publication?

What sign-offs do you require?

How often do you want to publish new content to your profiles?

How does social media tie in with your offline campaigns? What type of content does your audience respond to best (if known)? What type of content do you want to create for your brand’s audience (images, video)?

What message are you trying to send with your content?

How do you use user-generated content in your campaigns?

What holidays does your client want to observe?

So on and so forth. The answers you get to these questions will help you determine the resources you have available to work with on your client’s content and opportunities for growth. It will also help you add the right type of content to your strategy that your client’s audience will engage with. If your client is not brand new to social media marketing, chances are they’ll have used tools to help them and should have some data on how effective their campaigns have been. You will want to find out what tools they’ve been using, how they’ve measured their return on investment (ROI), what they’ve tried in the past, and what is and isn’t working for them: What tools have you used to manage your social media profiles until now? How do you intend to measure return on investment? What is working for you (and not working) right now? How does social media fit into your sales funnel or buyer’s journey? What have you tried in the past? Have you got any tracking pixels installed on your site? You should be able to use past information from campaigns in the past as a guide to focus on what could improve results in the future.

So there you have it, everything you need in order to become a six figure social media admin. From the navigation of platforms and management of communities to content creation, analytics, digital advertising and brand persona; everything has been included to aid in not only doing a good job but being able to command top dollar in this increasingly competitive marketplace. However, there are still tips and tricks, not presently included, to be learnt as the space evolves seemingly every other day. However, we are betting that if you are currently reading this, right now, you will be well ahead of the game.