Lately we’ve been working with quite a few CMO’s at companies that are considering the leap into social media marketing, many of which are in the process of choosing a social media agency, nailing down scope of work, and all of which are still unsure if it will be a good or a bad investment.
To be honest, this is a scary leap for marketers, who are being pushed from competitors and internal staff to enter this space , and who then feel the inevitable pressure to quantify their results.
And so the Marketer’s journey into social media begins as it usually begins: with the issuance of a request for proposal (RFP).
That is where it becomes interesting…For instance, instead of traditional detailed requests for proposals, most of the RFP’s we get are as informal as an email or a made from scratch “social media proposal”, totaling less than 5 pages in length. All of these have the same in common: they are requests to “propose specific social media strategies” and a “detailed list of pricing”.
From there, as a social media agency, we have to defend our tactics and strategies as they are met with skepticism and questions on every front – as marketers themselves are trying to make sure that they can answer the questions imposed from internal staff regarding timing, resources, and of course effectiveness and metrics.
And so, I figured that it was about time to reveal the marketer’s foray into social media by answering the most common questions/barriers that arise in the process . Some of the following questions I will be answering in subsequent posts are as follows:
1. How will a Social Media Agency Work with my current agency?
2. How long does a typical social media campaign last?
3. How will this social media campaign be measured?
4. How will content be developed?
5. What is the budget?
Hopefully this will grow into a conversation that we can all benefit from. Those on the marketing side will have a better understanding of what to expect, and those on the social media agency side will have a better understanding of how to answer these questions while sustaining ethics, generating results, and maintaining a sound business model.
Stay tuned…. And let me know any feedback or direction you’d like to see this take.
