Social Media is too broad for a company or brand to take on all its possible services. Majority of businesses and individuals, who are taking time to understand Social Media will realize they only need concentrate on one aspect of it to gain its full potential.
As an example, I have an acquaintance who owns a restaurant at a nearby mall. We haven’t had the moment to know more of each other but through friends and some of her social networks, I found out she has a podcast she maintains with her DJ boyfriend and is very active on her Facebook to showcase events she goes to related to the food industry.
As we can see, she made good use Podcasting and Facebook. We could think she could use videos to show happenings in events she attends to but we can leave that to other event goers to publish videos in Youtube. She could have submitted articles and press releases but lifestyle editors track these events and her name and picture is often found along with the elites, thus, bringing more exposure to herself and her restaurant. I don’t see her actively using wikis to promote her restaurant and activities. However, who knows what food and wine related blogs or forums she’s maybe checking out to update herself on the on-goings on the industry.
You see, she understands what Social Media to use for her work. Thus, it is important to know which Social Media feature to work with to gain its full benefits.
Earlier this day at work, I was tasked to start on a draft proposal for potential Social Media Clients. It was easy for me to start on the introduction, consisting on the definition of Social Media and how important it is to business marketing today. When I got to giving a cost for basic and premium packages, I stopped. I realized, this is hard to measure because Social Media’s scope is so broad, it was hard to define when a task starts and ends.
I will list down Social Media services (in layman’s terms) then the considerations I deem are important to consider not only for the cost, but also for its implementation within the group or organization and to who will do the work. From here on I will refer to the Social Media practitioner ‘Company’ and client as ‘Client’.
Website / web page / content Optimization (Entire Website)
If a site will specifically have a number of pages not more than 20 pages I presume, then I think this will be feasible to work on. Remember that content optimization consists of many factors, which are:
- keywords integration at least at the beginning, middle and end of the content
- keywords density
- proper emphasis (via h1,h2, strong, etc. usage)
- proper alt tags
- proper titles and meta information
- minimum scripts to avoid lagging and search engine tracking those first instead of content
- proper placements of script
- removal of unnecessary scripts
- XML or sitemap creation
- fixing of broken links or 404 pages
- integration of robots.txt file
and more…
If a site will be dynamic and generate many pages in the future, then this will take on constant monitoring and updates for the person who will handle the account. So the Company and Client will have to come into terms how will this maintenance go and who will handle it since research and optimization implementation will take a lot of time.
Keyword research and analysis. Keyword recommendations and constant content updates
This is actually based on what is the trend within the Client’s market. Let us put into context that search engines rely on what the users are talking about. This is why constant monitoring online on a market is essential to gain inputs on what they want, how they behave and what they are looking for. From this, Company will need to continuously track and monitor places where the potential market often congregates online and make necessary updates on Social Media channels for the Client. Of course, Client will have the last say on what keywords to use on their pages unless strongly persuaded by Company to use recommended findings.
The dilemma here is the same as above. This will take a lot of time so Company has to educate Client that Social Media efforts is not a one time deal if they are serious in making their presence known online. Such efforts will constitute a lot of time, efforts and money, if Client is willing to pay for the services.
Creation of Progress Reports
There is no sense in making all Social Media efforts if no one will track its progress online. It is important to have analytics installed a website that would generate reports on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. If Client understands the statistics that is well and good. As of what to do the statistics will be the problem. So a Social Media Company, who understands the field is still essential to put online strategy into motion.
Preparation of necessary recommended social media platforms.
True, it is easy to register and purchase Social Media platforms. Yet, there is the issue at times of designing and skinning a platform, or sometimes a Client request to have a customized module integrated within it. This will take time for developers to figure out since working with a platform not your own can lead to future issues from unnoticed tweaks done to the program. Intense Q&A will be needed to provide great results.
I will not be surprised if a Company has received complaints from Clients about how their online statistics dropped.
To Clients, I will say:
I’m sure you have experienced the headache of creating a marketing plan for your business. You understood the necessity of studying and knowing how your market’s mind work. With the Internet, the way to reach your market is easier, cost-effective compared to traditional advertising. But the work involved is similar to making Focus Group Discussions, surveys and interview. The Internet provides a whole new marketing effort of hunting down the necessary data and to create the appropriate online campaign for your brand. Thus, the effort given is meticulous and time-consuming as with any other marketing efforts done offline.
To the Company, it will be up to you to educate your Client on the tasks involved for Social Media. Up to now, I’m honestly having hard time placing down costs that I would need to discuss it first with our Managing Director on how to break down tasks and which Social Media channels the Company would be able to cater on based on the business’ current time and resources.
If anyone could give me suggestion to make things clearer, I would greatly appreciate it. :)
