MackCollier.com

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How to Think Like Zuck: a Q&A With Ekaterina Walter

As most of you know, I’ve been working on Think Like a Rock Star with McGraw-Hill since last May.  But over the last few months I’ve been closely following the progression of Ekaterina Walter’s book Think Like Zuck, since Ekaterina is not only a good friend, but she’s also with McGraw-Hill.  I wanted to do a Q&A with Ekaterina, since her book goes on sale today and as you can see, it’s already getting rave reviews on Amazon.  Here’s what Ekaterina had to say about the book and why you will enjoy it:

Mack: Think Like Zuck is about the five secrets behind the success of Facebook, including Passion, Purpose, People, Product and Partnerships.  Did you order those 5 Ps in terms of perceived importance, and if you didn’t, which of the 5 Ps would you say is most important for the average business to have in order to be successful?

Ekaterina:  “Think Like Zuck” is an analogy/philosophy of a leader who follows his/her passion, leads with purpose, builds great teams, and strives for continued excellence in his/her product (or services). It is a mentality that drives great leaders to building successful business and the approach they use to doing so.

To me the five are not separable. You see, when you are passionate about, you want to imagine, to create, to build. Passion fuels your purpose. And your purpose defines what product/service you want to offer and what business you want to build. But one can’t build a successful product (or business) alone, one needs a strong team of people who believe in the same vision to help execute on that purpose (and that is where strong partnerships come along as well).

 

Mack: One of the interesting tidbits for me came in the Product chapter where you told the story of how when Facebook rolled out News Feed in 2006, that it was immediately slammed by most users.  Can you talk about what that episode meant to the future of Facebook and also how Facebook employees viewed Zuckerberg as a result?

Ekaterina: A lot of people internally debated with him whether this was the right decision or not. He persisted. And just like with the decision of expanding beyond colleges before that and becoming a platform later, he was right. I think these key decisions solidified everyone’s belief in Mark’s vision.

The reason the NewsFeed wasn’t welcomed right away by users is because of the privacy concerns. Zuckerberg tends to be ahead of his time on his belief in radical transparency. He saw the usage on the network jump exponentially right after the NewsFeed was introduced, so he didn’t respond right away because he watched numbers, not people. It was a mistake to not respond right away with the revised privacy settings, a mistake the company made several times. I don’t think the company ever fully recovered from that. But the reality is that now we cannot imagine our lives without NewsFeed and the ability for others to serve us their news in our stream vs. going to each person’s page individually and checking out what they were up to (that seems so archaic now).

 

Mack: You no doubt spent a ton of time researching Zuckerberg in writing Think Like Zuck.  What’s the one thing you learned about Mark that surprised you the most?

Ekaterina: You mean besides the fact that he is a romantic and that he designed his wife’s ring? I was personally touched to see that side of him…

What I admire about Mark is his dedication to his purpose and long-term vision. He is very strategic in his approach to growing the company and building the product. Everything that he does supports one thing that he is really focused on – connecting people around the globe and making the world more open and transparent. Wall Street, and sometimes the users, tend to see (and criticize) things that are right under their nose, but what we sometimes tend to forget is that a lot of times we  are not only investing in the company’s P&L, but in the vision and strategic acumen of a leader. Jeff Bezos is one example of a leader who, just like Zuck, didn’t make any excuses about his decisions, he was very clear about his path and he persisted no matter the criticism. When he launched reviews on his site, people questioned his own knowledge of business. Now almost every business has reviews on their sites. And with all of the ups and downs Amazon stock continues to steadily climb.

 

Mack: Finally, of the 5 Ps in your book, what’s the 1 P that Zuckerberg gets right, that you think most leaders and CEOs miss?

Ekaterina: Culture. He built a solid culture that can sustain the growth of the business and support constant innovation. The way of the hack is very deeply ingrained inside the company. Company’s slogans are: “done is better than perfect” and “this journey is only 1% finished” and that is because Facebook employees never rest on their laurels, they stay focused and keep shipping.

There are a lot of other elements of the culture that I talk about in my book that help create this solid foundation of success. And the fact is: not every company can establish a culture that supports the mission of a business in such an effective way.  But that always was and will always remain a critical ingredient of long-term success.

 

Thanks to Ekaterina for giving us some insights into the book Think Like Zuck.  And for full disclaimer, Ekaterina was nice enough to send me a review copy of the book, and I really enjoyed it.  It is packed with business case studies and even has a few human interest stories splashed in.  It made the book much more enjoyable to me, and a quicker read.  Check it out, I think you will enjoy it even if you aren’t a Facebook fan boy, and I’m definitely not. But I do appreciate Zuckerberg a bit more as an entrepreneur  and a person, after reading Ekaterina’s book!

PS: Think Like Zuck goes on sale TODAY on Amazon, you can buy it here.

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Randi Zuckerberg Just Reminded Us Why It’s Important to Understand Your Customers

If you use Facebook, you’ve been there.  Either you post a goofy picture that you THINK is only going to your ‘Close Friends’ and it ends up being shared with the world, or someone tags you in a photo that goes public when they didn’t intent it to.  It’s long been a problem for Facebook users, and it speaks to how incredibly convoluted and confusing the privacy settings are on the site.

Well yesterday, it seems Randi Zuckerberg, Mark’s sis, got stung as well.  She posted a pic of her family having wild reactions to seeing the Poke app on their smartphones.

She meant to post it privately to her Facebook wall, and that’s what she thought she was doing.  It turns out with the way her privacy settings are set, she apparently didn’t realize that her subscribers could see the pic.

And one of them did, and posted it on Twitter.  And then Randi went apeshit.  And then a LOT of people pointed out the irony that facebook’s privacy settings are so confusing that even Zuck’s sis can’t figure them out.  After much teeth-gnashing, finally this happened:

In social-media circles, we call this a ‘tone-deaf response’.  To be fair, we probably shouldn’t be sharing her photo, even if she did (unwittingly) make it public.  And I’ve shared it twice now on Facebook via articles that included it, so if that makes be an indecent human being, then I guess I’ll have to take the blame for that.

But I don’t think people are sharing Randi’s photo because they are indecent people that are trying to hurt or embarrass Randi.  I think they are sharing Randi’s photo to back up what they have been saying for a while now:  That Facebook’s privacy settings ARE damn confusing!

The big problem I have with Randi’s response is that she’s placing the blame on others for sharing her photo, and not on her brother for creating a site that has such confusing privacy settings.  By blaming others to the point of lecturing them on human decency, all she is doing fanning the flames of a her self-created firestorm, and making it obvious to Facebook’s users that she either doesn’t understand their concerns over the site’s privacy settings, or she doesn’t care.

On the other hand, if she had laughed this off with something like ‘Wow, guess it’s time to talk to my brother about making those privacy settings less confusing!’, it would have garnered her a lot of goodwill with FB users, and likely would have resulted in far less sharing of the photo.

Remember, it’s not the initial action that determines the social media crisis, it’s how you respond to it.

Again, I totally get why Randi is upset about her photo being shared when she didn’t want it to be.  But I don’t think she understands why people are sharing it, and that’s where the disconnect lies.

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A ‘Like’ Is Not ‘Engagement’ On Facebook

Over the past few months I’ve been spending a lot more time on Facebook, actually I’ve been spending more time there than on Twitter.  As a result, I’ve seen how a lot of different brands and organizations are attempting to build engagement with the people that are following their page.

Typically, brands are trying to get people to Like or Share their posts.  An example of what I’m talking about might be a brand sharing a picture of someone lying on the beach and then saying ‘Its Friday!  Like this if you are ready for the weekend!’

Folks, that is not engagement.  How much effort is involved for me to see that in my News Feed, click Like, and move on?  It takes one mouse click.  That’s all the ‘engagement’ that picture earned you for your brand.

And yes, I understand the impact Likes and Shares can have on your page’s EdgeRank.  But wouldn’t it make more sense to actually create engaging content?  Because engaging content not only engages people, it gets Likes and Shares!

The good news is, it’s a lot easier to create engaging content on Facebook than you might realize, it just requires that you think a bit about how to be more engaging.

For example, how often have you seen a brand or page post a picture of a cute puppy and then ask you to Like if you think this puppy is just impossibly cute.  Seriously, it happens all the time, right?

But check out how a slight tweak in this approach can work wonders:

Aw….impossibly cute puppy alert!!!  But notice what they did, they didn’t simply ask you to Like the picture, they asked you to share a story with others about your dog!  And when you do share your story, you’ll also read all the other stories that other dog owners are sharing in the comments.  You’ll probably laugh, have a few ‘my dog does the same thing!’ moments, and who knows, you might even make a new friend just from interacting via the comments!   And you’ll also have a deeper affinity for this page, because they found a way to actually engage you.

Now, let’s say you are tasked with building engagement on a page about a TV show that hasn’t been on the air in 27 years.  That’s right, you need to build engagement around a TV show that most Facebook users have probably never seen.

So how do you do it?  By appealing to their fans, of course!  Check out how TVLand engages fans of 70s Sitcom classic M*A*S*H:

Every day TVLand posts a picture from one of the episodes of M*A*S*H that it’s airing that night, and asks fans a trivia question about that episode.  I am a huge fan of the series, so I freaking love these.  In the above episode, Frank is wearing a pair of hunting socks, which are heated.  Which is a big deal, because everyone else is freezing and there’s no heat!

So what happens is everyone leaves a comment answering that Frank has hunting socks.  But then something happens, people start answering the question by repeating lines from the episode.  Such as:

1 – Radar tells Colonel Blake “They’re hunting socks, sir!” and Blake replies “At this hour?”

2 – Or when Klinger says they are socks that get warm, and then adds “I have a bra like that!”

And before you know it, we are all laughing and remembering what a hilarious episode this is!  Which means we will probably remember how funny this episode was, and decide to watch it that night on TVLand.  But that happened because TVLand is smart enough to engage its fans, and to create a way for them to interact with each other.  The M*A*S*H updates from TVLand are honestly a highlight of my day on Facebook, and I often Like the update, comment on it, plus Like comments from other fans.

So when you are trying to build engagement on Facebook, think of ways to actually build engagement.  Creating a way for people to share stories, as you see in these two examples, is an incredibly powerful way to build engagement.

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History Suggests Facebook Won’t Last

I’ve been using a computer since 1983, and have been active in online communities and sites since the late 1980s.  I’ve seen everything from Prodigy and CompuServe to AOL and MySpace come and go as THE popular online destination.  But none of these sites could even sniff the popularity that Facebook has right now.

But it’s not going to last.

I was chatting about this with Jill McFarland on Facebook this morning.  From my experience, All the online community sites/socnets I have been active on since 1990 have had the same problem:  The user base expands to a certain level, and then the site goes overboard in its attempts to monetize that user base, the user experience suffers, and eventually everyone scatters.  A lot of people left CompuServe because it was charging $25 a month for 20 hours, then AOL went to an unlimited model (and having the Instant Messaging technology didn’t hurt either).  Then internet providers started offering internet access at a rate that was the same or lower as AOL’s price for its online site, and that began to eat away at AOL’s base.

MySpace is/was a free site, monetized via ads.  It offered a lot of what AOL had, without charging a monthly fee.  But the ads became more intrusive and the entire experience became more spammy, and a lot of us decided to jump sideways off MySpace onto Facebook.

Now, we are just a couple of days away from Facebook’s Initial Public Offering.  And just today, it was announced that Facebook’s owners are going to up the amount of their company that they are willing to sell by 25%.  There has always been one common problem with all major internet community sites or socnets or whatever you want to call them.  Whenever they attempt to monetize, almost all of their monetization efforts come at the expense of the user experience, instead of enhancing it.  Come Friday evening, Facebook will suddenly have millions of additional shareholders to answer to.  What they want (better return on their investment) will likely be placed above, and probably at the expense of, the user experience.

In that Huffington Post article I linked to above, there was a fascinating comment left by a user that hit me right between the eyes.  The user was replying to the idea that Facebook was free and always would be with: “If it’s free then you ain’t the customer, you’re the product.”

Do you think Facebook has a future?  Will it still be around in 5 years?  Bigger than today?  Smaller?  What do you see?

 

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How Much Should Your Company Pay For Social Media?

cost of social media

I am obsessed with the Real-Time feature that Google Analytics added a few months ago, and am constantly checking it throughout the day.  It shows you how many visitors are active on your site at any moment, as well as what page they are viewing, and how they arrived at your blog.

At almost any time during the day when I check who is currently on this blog, the odds are at least one person is here because they were sent here from Google after searching for something related to the cost of social media.  These three posts I wrote on How Much Social Media Costs Companies in 2010, 2011 and 2012 are by far the 3 most popular posts on this blog.

What’s been interesting to me is that I’ve received two main forms of feedback on these posts, and the prices quoted:

1 – Small business owners and those that are self-employed think the prices are way too high.

2 – People that work for large companies think the prices are way too low.

So this feedback, coupled with the fact that many people are searching for information on pricing, tells me that many companies and business owners are in the dark as to how much basic social media marketing services will cost them.  And as much as we would like to believe that most companies in 2012 ‘get’ the importance of Social Media, from what I’m seeing, there’s no shortage of companies that are just now starting to investigate if social media marketing is for them.

So if your company is trying to decide how much it will cost to begin using social media, here’s what to consider:

1 – Think about WHAT you want to accomplish with social media.  Here’s a post I wrote on Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Creating a Social Media Strategy (But Were Afraid to Ask!).  No, you don’t have to create an elaborate 50-page document on how your family-owned seafood restaurant should be using social media, but the point here is to have you put some thought into why you want to use social media.  The quickest way to waste money on social media is to invest in using tools that won’t help you accomplish your goals.  Otherwise, most companies could simply launch a blog, and start accounts on Twitter and Facebook and be done with it.

2 – Start small, grow as you better understand the tools.  Let’s be honest, doing social media effectively takes a serious time commitment.  The companies that we today laud as wonderful social media case studies are frequently large companies that have had a dedicated social media team in place for years.  So if your company’s social media team is comprised of YOU, and you are new to social media, suddenly diving in and trying to launch 5 different social media accounts for your business is probably the fastest way to go no where.

Instead, as you begin to flesh out why you want to start using social media, think about the goals you have, and then prioritize the tools that will help you reach those goals.  For example, if your tech company wants to build awareness and you believe that a blog, presence on Google Plus and Twitter will best help you, the prioritize those tools in order of importance.  So instead of launching all three presences at once, maybe it makes more sense to first start on creating and growing your blog.  Then after a few weeks, you can begin to spend more time with Google Plus, using it first as a tool to get better research, then as a way to promote your new posts.  You may start interacting with some customers there, and you can follow them to Twitter and do the same there.  Just remember this, it is far easier to build and audience and move it to a new location than it is to try to build two new audiences at the same time.

3 – Avoid the shiny, follow the value.  Invariably, the social media space creates a new ‘darling’ tool every 6-12 months.  This time last year, everyone was in love with Quora.  Earlier this year, everyone was on the Pinterest bandwagon, and even now that’s starting to die down.  For whatever reason, this space loves to overhype newish tools, and you’ll suddenly see all manner of posts and articles devoted to why every business MUST now be on Quora/Plus/Pinterest.

Don’t believe the hype.  You shouldn’t ignore these new tools, but you should research them to make a thoughtful decision on whether or not your business should adopt its usage.  Let value created determine if you jump on the Flavor of the Month, not hype.

4 – Don’t start using Social Media due to fear of being left behind.  This ties in with the above point, but you need to adopt social media based on sound business value, not on fear that ‘everyone’s doing it and we’ll be left behind if we don’t start’.  I had a company contact me once and say that they were ready to start using social media ‘the sooner, the better!’.  I started asking some questions, and it turns out that they hadn’t even considered using social media until an industry newsletter they were subscribed to came out with its latest issue proclaiming that every business owner in that space had to start using social media right now!

I’ll say again, from my experience and in my opinion, most businesses are NOT using social media, and most of the ones that are, aren’t doing so very effectively.  So the idea that all your competitors are using social media and doing exceptionally well with it, is most likely a myth.  Granted, you shouldn’t ignore social media, but you have plenty of time to do some research and decide if social media is right for you.  Again, let your decision to adopt social media be dictated by the value it can create for you, not the fear of being left behind.

 

Now, I raised these points because time is the most common currency companies will spend when it comes to social media.  These points were mentioned to help keep you from spending more time on your social media efforts than is necessary.

But let’s talk more specifically about costs.  Let’s start with an example of a mid-sized company that has one person in charge of social media, and one person that helps her on a part-time basis.  Both of these people are eager to learn, but have limited knowledge of social media.  This company has decided to launch a blog.  There’s three ways they can go about this:

1 – Do it themselves.  The advantage to this approach is that obviously, they won’t have to directly pay for the blog.  But since the two employees will be literally learning as they go, there will be a big time commitment involved, and when you consider their salaries, that’s a real expense.

2 – Hire an agency to ghost-write the blog for them.  This will be the most expensive option, but it also frees up the two employees to not worry about the content creation process.  Still, if the employees aren’t actively monitoring the blog and responding to issues raised by customers on (and off) the blog, it can cause more trouble than its worth.

3 – Do the blog themselves, but hire a consultant or agency to train/mentor them.  Unless I am extremely confident in the company’s ability to handle the blog themselves, I typically encourage them to go this route.  And yes, I offer Social Media and Blog Training.  A big reason why I like this option for the company is because you can customize the level of training you think you need or can afford.  For example, if you hire an agency to create and write your blog for you, you will incur setup fees as well as likely several thousand dollars a month in ongoing costs.  But by doing the blog yourself with ongoing training, you can spend less plus typically tier the training costs so they decrease as you become better at developing your blog.

 

So if you want to spend as little as possible on social media marketing, remember these tips:

1 – Do your research and build a plan.  Figure out exactly what you want to accomplish with social media.  This will save you a ton of time down the road.  And for smaller companies especially, time is money.

2 – Start small, then grow.  Unless you have a 10-person social media team and a 6-figure budget, it’s probably best to start with one or two social media tools, then build others out as you can.

3 – Comparison shop.  Get quotes from multiple consultants/agencies for the services you think you will need.

 

If your company is using social media, what pricing advice would you give other companies?  Did you do it yourself, or pay someone to help?

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Should Marketers Use Social Media Personally Before They Use it Professionally?

social media, companies, marketing, ceoI recently read an emarketer article on a study BRANDfog did into how employees viewed their CEO, if the CEO tweeted.

The study found that 51% of employees were more likely to trust a CEO that tweeted, while another 31% were much more likely to trust their CEO, if they tweeted.  The study also found that 82% of respondents said they trust a company more when its C-Suite is using social media.

Does this hold true for you?  Are you more likely to trust and view a brand favorably, if its CEO is active on Twitter?  I tend to agree with this, because it makes me feel that the CEO is at least familiar with the tool, and is likely encouraging their employees to be active in social media as well.

So to flip this around, instead of companies cutting off access to Facebook and other popular social media sites at work, should they instead be encouraging employees, and especially executives to use social media?

A big problem I see with how many companies use social media is that they view it as a marketing tool, instead of a communications tool. They learn about how popular Facebook and Twitter are, and think ‘Ohhh….shiny new marketing channel!’  When of course, we are using these tools to CONNECT with each other, not to market to each other!

What if a company was wanting to start using social media, and the CEO called her executive team in and told them to start a Facebook and Twitter personal account, and pick one other account.  It could be a blog, Plus, Pinterest, whatever.   Let’s say the CEO just told her team to use the tools for a month, and then everyone would report back with their thoughts on the tools, and their experiences.

If a company took this approach and FIRST used the tools personally, would that make their efforts in using the tools professionally more or less effective?  What do you think?

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Subscribe to My Social Media Marketing Newsletter!

Social Media Marketing Newsletter

Starting next Wednesday, I’ll be running a weekly newsletter in addition to (almost) daily posts here.  The content focus will be slightly different, however.

Here, I cover Social Media primarily, but a blend of content that can benefit the individual, as well as those that are using Social Media for their company.  But this newsletter will be aimed solely at marketers and anyone using Social Media within their company or organization.  Each week the newsletter will feature original content that’s designed to do 3 things:

1 – Help you solve an existing Social Media Marketing issue you are having.  One week we might talk about building a better blogger outreach program, the next look at getting a better handle on our blog’s analytics to increase leads.  A case study here and there will be examined.

2 – Give you tips and advice for improving your day-to-day tasks and routines as well as managing your workflow.

3 – Keep you up-to-date on where I will be speaking/appearing, and giving you information on how we can work together.

I cannot stress this enough, the content in this newsletter will be original content.  Some of it may eventually make its way here to the blog, but it won’t be that often.

So if you’re working for a company or organization that wants to learn more about how to better use Social Media to connect with your customers and/or activate your brand advocates, please do subscribe to my newletter by filling out the quick form below.  You’ll input your email address then be sent an email to confirm your subscription.

Thank you so much, see you next Wednesday!


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Social Media is About Building Relationships

Social media, networking, relationships

I spend a LOT of time on Twitter.  For me, Twitter is an amazing tool to connect and network with other people.  I know a lot of you like to use Facebook and Plus for the same reasons.

Often, we will hear that we shouldn’t be ‘wasting time’ on social media sites all day, and that we should be busy ‘getting things done’.  What these people don’t understand is that being successful in using Social Media is all about building human relationships.

As I said in my previous post, last week I got to visit Bazaarvoice and present Think Like a Rockstar to approximately 75 of their employees.  Additionally, this was the first time I’d presented Rockstar to a company, so I was excited about that as well.  But I think it’s interesting to consider how I got to the point where I could call Bazaarvoice a client.  You say it actually has taken 5 years.

In 2007, I wrote a Company Blog Checkup for Dell’s Direct2Dell blog.  I gave it pretty high marks, and in the comments, both Richard Binhammer, and John Pope (who was with Dell at the time) from Dell jumped in and offered feedback, and proved that they were listening.  Those comments by Dell got a relationship started with the company, and 3 years later, I was moderating the first #DellCAP event for the company!

The event lasted two days, and on the second day, Dell’s CMO joined us in the morning, who at the time was Erin Nelson, who would later accept the same position at Bazaarvoice!  So that’s the connection, right?  Well last week when I arrived at Bazaarvoice, Erin was telling her assistant about following me on Twitter and she said she loved my tweets because I was always tweeting about college football and giving her updates on games!  So it’s not my insights into brand advocacy that Erin wanted, but the score of the Texas – Oklahoma game in the 3rd quarter 😉

But that makes a wonderful point: Social Media is about CONNECTING with people and ESTABLISHING RELATIONSHIPS.  It doesn’t matter how that is done, for example with the college football tweets, Erin is literally one of dozens of people that have told me over the last couple of years that the love my tweets about college football.  Others have told me they love to watch BURN NOTICE or that they also love Dr Pepper 😉

All of those conversations might seem like a waste of time to some people, but they are leading to real business for me, and I bet they have for many of you as well.  And no, it doesn’t always happen overnight, and it often doesn’t happen when you try to ‘force’ it.  It usually happens when you try to connect with other people and share with them what you have learned, and try to learn from and get to know them as well.  Because Social Media is About Building Relationships.

Just like most areas of life, right?

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How Much Does Social Media Cost Companies in 2012?

Social Media Marketing, Social Media Consulting, Social Media Marketing Fees, Twitter, Facebook, Blog, Google Plus, YouTube, Pinterest

Two years ago I wrote a post entitled So How Much Will a Social Media Strategy Cost, which was designed to give businesses and organizations an idea of how much they should expect to pay consultants and agencies for basic social media marketing services.  As you might expect, that post was insanely popular, so I followed it up with How Much Does Social Media Cost Companies in 2011 last year, and now this year those prices are being updated again with this post.  For all three, these prices are taken from published rates found online, as well as what other agencies and consultants have told me they charge for these services.

In general, both posts in 2010 and 2011 were designed to give companies basic price information around the most common services, such as setup and execution of a blog, Twitter and Facebook page, as well as basic Social Media Training.  In the comments of both posts, many of you mentioned that there were additional areas that you would like to see addressed in the future.

With that in mind, I reached out specifically to some friends and fellow consultants that offer Social Media Marketing services to their clients either as independents, or as part of an agency (their own, or someone else’s).  I would like to thank the following experts for helping me by giving me their rates for these services so I could have the most accurate price information(And on short-notice during the Holidays!):

Jason Falls, Tom Martin, Jay Baer, Tamar Weinberg, Nick Westergaard, Mitch Canter, Lisa Petrilli, David Griner, Drew McLellan, Bobby Rettew, DJ Waldow, Jennifer Kane and Kary Delaria.  If you have any questions about these services or need to hire a consultant or agency to help you with your Social Media Marketing efforts, please email me and I will be happy to work with you, or refer you to one or more of these fine people.  Also, please click their names to visit their blog/site and learn more about their services.

Before I get to the prices, I wanted to talk a bit about how the area of Social Media Consulting has changed over the last few years.  In 2008 and 2009, Social Media Consultants were in fairly high demand, especially the more well-known and established ones.  Companies were realizing that they needed to start using Social Media as a way to listen to and connect with their customers, yet they had little to no idea how to do so. Enter the Social Media Consultant.  A shift in marketing philosophy by many companies created a real demand for professionals that could create and execute social media strategies for companies.

By 2010 and 2011, most companies began to understand that Social Media wasn’t simply a fad, and it was a business necessity that they needed to address via hiring.  Many companies, especially larger brands, hired Social Media Managers, and then entire Social Media Marketing teams.  This shift had a profound impact on the area of Social Media Consulting in two ways:

1 – Many of these companies hired existing Social Media Consultants to be their Social Media Managers and fill their Social Media Marketing teams.  Companies like Radian 6 and Edelman PR aggressively hired independent consultants as well as professionals at other agencies to build and compliment their own Social Media Marketing teams.

2 – Many of these companies stopped (or slowed in) hiring Social Media Consultants for execution work, instead giving that to their in-house team.  The successful consultants and agencies today are usually the ones that adapted the quickest to this change.

As a result, the average Social Media Consultant today is doing less execution work, and is spending more time actually consulting with and training companies on how to use Social Media properly.  Diversification is a good thing.

Now, on with the prices.  As with last year’s post, for every service I am providing a range, as well as a Most Charge distinction.  In general, the fees associated with setup of basic social media tools like a company blog, Twitter or Facebook page have gone down.  On the other hand, rates for comprehensive Social Media Strategy auditing, creation and training services have generally increased.

In general, smaller businesses and non-profits can expect to pay prices that are closer to the low end of the price range, while large companies and organizations will probably see their quoted rates closer to the top end of the range.

Also, when looking at rates for monthly content curation and management of individual social media tools, remember that the more content the consultant/agency has to curate and create/edit for you, the higher the rates.  Likewise, if you can handle the content creation and just need training and some light editing, then your rates will usually be lower.

Here’s the prices:

Blog

Custom design and template creation – $1,000 – $5,000

Most Charge – $1,000-$3,000 

Writing/Editing Content for the blog plus ongoing training – $500-$4,000 a month (Assume 1-2 posts a week at this rate)

Most Charge – $1,000-$3,000

Ghostwriting blog posts – $50-$500 per

Most Charge – $75-$200 per

 

Twitter

Account Setup – $500-$2,000

Most Charge – $500-$1,000 

Ongoing Account Management and Training – $500-$3,000 a month (For this service, the more content you need provided for you, the higher the fees)

Most Charge – $500-$1,500 a month

 

Facebook

Initial Page Setup – $500-$2,500

Most Charge – $500-$1,500

Monthly Content Management and Curation – $500-$3,000 a month 

Most Charge – $1,000-$2,000 a month

Facebook Promotion Creation

Short-Term (1-3 months) Contest, including branding for the app, limited promotion on other channels such as Facebook and Twitter to promote the contest.  Fee doesn’t include prize and Facebook Ads to promote – $1,500-$20,000

Long-Term (3-6 months) Contest, including above, more elaborate promotion based on client’s needs – $25,000-$75,000

Note: These are the ‘Big Three’ tools when it comes to Social Media for business, and many consultants and agencies will offer companies a package deal on setting up and maintaining all three.  For other tools such as Google Plus, Pinterest, MySpace (yes many entertainment and music-related businesses especially still use it) and others, assume that rates in general will be consistent for what you could expect to pay for similar services with Facebook or Twitter.

 

Video

Total to shoot, produce and edit video – $500 – $30,000 (Note:  Obviously, the complexity and length of the video plays a huge role in the final cost.  If you want custom animation, several scenes and a 30-minute video, obviously that’s going to cost far more than a simple, 2-minute one-on-one video.  One expert told me that they charge $1,000 per minute of finished product.)

 

Social Media Strategy 

Social Media Monitoring (Note – Number of keywords/phrases tracked here has a big impact on fees.  More costs more.):

Setup – $500-$5,000

Most Charge – $1,000-$2,000

Ongoing Reports and Advisement – $500-$7,500 a month

Most Charge – $1,000-$2,000

Social Media Strategy Audit (Examine existing Social Media Strategy and give detailed recommendations on what strategy should look like moving forward, with instructions on how to measure results) – $2,000-$25,000

Most Charge – $5,000-$10,000

Social Media Strategy Creation and Integration with Existing Marketing Efforts (Note – Most consultants and agencies will require that this service be married to a Social Media Strategy Audit, as they will then create the strategy recommended in the audit) – $10,000-$30,000

Most Charge – $10,000-$15,000

 

Social Media Training and Consulting

Hourly Training/Consulting – $50-$500 an hour

Most Charge – $100-$250 an hour

Note: These rates are for 1 hour of work.  If you can commit to a certain number of hours a month, for example, consultants and agencies will almost always give you a discount.

Social Media Workshops(All fees exclude travel and are for ON-SITE Workshops, not online):

Half-Day (Up to 4 hours): $500-$7,500

Most Charge – $2,000-$3,500

Full-Day (6-8 hours): $1,000-$15,000

Most Charge – $4,000-$6,000

Note: Keep in mind that these rates represent a significant amount of training and content creation time.  So if you pay a consultant $5,000 for a day-long workshop, that consultant might have spent 20 or 30 hours creating that workshop.  So the prep time has to be considered in addition to the actual time delivering the workshop when looking at fees.

 

Rates to Hire a Social Media Speaker

Individual session (Up to 90 minutes, usually 1 hour): $1,000-$5,000

Most Charge: $2,000-$3,000

Keynote: $1,000-$15,000

Most Charge: $5,000-$10,000

All rates exclude travel.

Finally, I wanted to close with some advice on choosing a Social Media Consultant.  First, before you begin the process of hiring a Social Media Consultant, you need to address a few areas:

  • Figure out what you want to accomplish via Social Media.  Do you want to generate sales?  Increase brand awareness?  Establish thought leadership for your CEO or company?  Connect with donors?  Giving some thought to what you want to accomplish via your social media efforts will make the rest of the process smoother.
  • What are your human resources?  How many people can work on your social media efforts?  If you have a team of 10 at the ready, then the amount of assistance you will need is far less than if you are the only person for your company that will be handling your social media efforts.  Know how many people can work on your social media efforts and how much time they can devote, because if you plan on executing a Social Media Strategy that will require a team of 5, and you only have 2, that shortcoming will have to be addressed either through hiring, or outsourcing to the agency/consultant.  Either way, it costs you money.
  • How long is your project going to be?  You probably can’t pin this down exactly without talking to the consultant first, but it helps to give some thought to this.

When you contact a consultant or agency, they should be asking you questions as well.  They should want to know why you want to use social media, what are you trying to accomplish.  If they try to give you prices or push you toward using a particular tool without asking you questions, that is a red flag.  They really can’t give you prices until they know more about your company, your resources, and what you are wanting to accomplish.  Even if you contact them and tell them you need prices on creating and launching a blog, they should still ask you some questions to determine if you do need a blog to reach your intended business goals for your social media strategy.

As always, I hope this helps you in creating your Social Media budgets for 2012.  If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment.

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Facebook ‘Fans’ are NOT the same thing as Brand Advocates

I was having a discussion on Twitter the other night and we were discussing a brand’s fans.  A passion topic of mine, but after a few minutes I realized something: The other person was talking about FACEBOOK fans, I was talking about Brand Advocates.

They are completely different groups.  That’s not to say that someone that Fans your Facebook Page can’t also be an advocate, but we know that the top reason people Fan a Facebook page, is to get discounts.  Brand Advocates aren’t looking for compensation or incentives in most cases, they want acknowledge and empowerment.

Yet I fear that Social Media in some ways is corrupting how brands view its customers.  We are teaching companies that ‘Fans’ on Facebook are something to be collected like baseball cards, and that they should target ‘influencers’ like bloggers and power Twitter users.

Brand Advocates are special customers that are motivated by a love of your brand and a desire to make sure that everyone else sees your brand in the same light that they do.  The amount of motivation that a Facebook Fan has for your brand is usually directly proportional to the value of the ‘prize’ they receive from Fanning your page.

Which would you rather have?