Q&A Monday: What is a social media consultant?

Jun 21, 2010 by

I met some friends of my parents a couple of weeks ago, and they just couldn’t understand what I do.  It made me realize that “PR person” or “marketing consultant” is pretty easy to grasp, but for most people, “social media” is them looking at pictures of their friends kids on Facebook, so they can’t understand what a consultant could do to help guide social media for brands.

Social Media Expert

So: I consult with companies on how to strategize and implement social media programs and campaigns.  What that means specifically is that I help brands determine whether they should use social media concepts (like building community and working with bloggers) and platforms (like Twitter and Facebook) as part of their strategy for achieving their brand objectives, and, if we determine that social will help them accomplish their goals, I can also help execute on the strategies and tactics necessary to meet those goals.

Yes, I’m very goal-oriented; as with any other marketing strategy, I believe that social media should be firmly grounded in a brand’s goals and objectives, and that social media plans should have measurement indicators built into them so that results can be measured to the extent possible.  Measurement in social media is a huge topic in and of itself; I’m queuing it up in my editorial calendar for a later post.

No one is an expert in this new field, so all we can do is guide clients in the direction we think best fits their needs.  We can also describe and apply “best practices” for some things – like technical blog implementation or developing a social media policy.  Nothing, however, is one-size-fits-all when it comes to social media as it’s primarily about community, and each and every community is different.  So adaptability and flexibility are key to a successful social media consulting engagement.

Have you used social media consultants in your business?  Are you a consultant yourself?  What experiences have you had, on either side of the fence, trying to get your social media efforts off the ground, or in explaining your work?

Related posts:

  1. Q&A Monday: Establishing a small business in social media
  2. Send out your spies to find your customers in social media
  3. Planning for social media storytelling

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  • Oolieee

    Why are you tweeting us posts that you wrote a year ago? Seems to be dated/stale info.

    • http://www.stephanieschwab.com Stephanie Schwab:Socialologist

      Good point! I’ve been using a WordPress plugin, Tweet Old Posts, that helps me make the most of my blog content by inserting it into my Twitter stream regularly. I’ve already excluded all of the posts from my blog that do have time-sensitive material in them (conference writeups, reactions to events, etc.), so I think that the remaining content is pretty much evergreen and valuable even a year later. It does seem like a good idea to revisit the list of posts that are being tweeted from time-to-time to be sure that something hasn’t gotten outdated (as when Facebook changes something or a new tool replaces an old one).

  • Stephanie Schwab:Socialologist

    As it happens, Amber Naslund had a related article just a couple of days ago: How to be an expert without being an ass. Great reading: http://www.brasstackthinking.com/2010/06/how-to…

  • http://www.simoons.com Peter Simoons

    Nice article Stephanie, I do recognize the blank looks older generations can give you when talking about social media. A little explanation will help in most cases, in a couple it will lure you into a discussion with the folks who feel this will pass by and is not here to stay.

    I fully agree that no one is an expert in this field. Always try to avoid that term and downsize it when others use the word. Like you I will tell them that no one is an expert, I do know a lot about it, but every situation is different and requires different set of solutions and a different level of commitment.

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