The Consultant’s Role
Social media is, ultimately, an endeavor that a business must take responsibility for on its own. It can’t successfully be outsourced long term if the company is to truly and authentically steward its own brand. Therefore, the role of the consultant or social media adviser is to educate, teach, and immerse the company in best practices for social media, including integrating social media with other marketing efforts and tying those initiatives directly to related business goals.
Their ultimate objective should be to “teach the business to fish”, becoming the training wheels of sorts while the company works through the challenges and opportunities of their social media implementation. The consultant can and should be working hand in hand with them to work social media into their day to day function and – when all is said and done – make themselves unnecessary and hand over the reins (save ongoing guidance on an as-needed basis, perhaps).
Proof
When it comes down to it, there is only one thing that can testify to a social media consultant’s effectiveness: results.
They can be ROI- or value- based results, qualitative or quantitative, but they have to be articulated clearly in terms of how they advanced a business goal. Period. (And if your consultant says that results and impact of social media are too nebulous to articulate, walk away). Some examples:

• Building a blog that grew in subscribers by a measurable amount each month, quarter or year
• Increasing subscriptions to an e-newsletter, downloads of a white paper, or other content offering based on publicity through online and social media channels
• Improved customer satisfaction ratings once social media tools were implemented along side traditional customer service mechanisms
• Increased visibility in traditional and/or online media placements through the use of social media or optimized press releases or newsrooms
• Creating a following on a corporate Twitter account that led to an increase in leads generated through that channel

It is not enough to merely say that “we set up a Facebook fan page with 2,000 members” or “we created a viral video”. Those aren’t results, those are tactics. The results are what happened in the wake of those initiatives to drive the business forward.
Asking for Help is Smart
Please don’t misinterpret me: I think the right consultant can add exponential value to a business and there are a pile of them right here as contributors to the Daily Fix that can point to how they’ve done just that. And remember that experience with more traditional marketing, communications, and customer service roles in a company adds to a consultant’s ability to translate and apply social media to a client’s unique situation.
You wouldn’t hire a website developer that couldn’t point to successful projects. You wouldn’t hire an accountant that couldn’t handle tax implications or a project manager that couldn’t meet deadlines. When tapping the expertise of a social media consultant, concrete results are the most important criteria you need to consider.

Many businesses are still planning this way, dividing their marketing efforts into “channels” and treating each vertically or horizontally, but rarely as a multi-faceted and intertwined approach. And this is critical to success in today’s marketing climate.
Consider Touchpoints
Social media, when done well, touches nearly every aspect of a business. In fact, I’d venture to say it’s more about the underpinnings of customer service than it is marketing or communications. First and foremost, it has to be used to create better customer experiences. That in turn paves the way for more clear, authentic, and customer-focused communications. It’s a cycle.
When planning: Go talk to the people that talk to your customers, directly, every day. Your sales team, your customer support team. Find out what issues and consistent messaging they’re hearing from your customers, and build your communications plan to address them. Directly.
There Is No End Date.
There’s some semantic debate and discussion around whether social media is an ongoing effort, or whether it can be part of a campaign. I think they can both exist (and see how the articulate Jason Baer explains that difference here). But in general, you have to consider social media as a tenet of business practice, not something you start and stop. It’s a philosophy, if you will. A commitment to creating content, communication, and interactions that keep your customers top of mind and encourage them to reach out to you and each other.
When planning: For each part of your marketing plan, ask yourself how that piece of outbound communication will create more inbound dialogue from your customers, either once or ongoing. Is your email campaign opening the door to people joining your online community? Are your press releases telling a story about customer experience and encouraging people to find you online? Stop thinking in terms of start and end dates, and rather how to keep the cycle of communication feeding itself, outbound to inbound and back again.
Efficient, Yes. Band-Aid, No.
I wish it didn’t happen, but I’ve heard several examples of companies saying “marketing is expensive, so we’ll just do social media instead.” Or worse, “We should really tack on some social media stuff to this campaign.” No, no, no.
Social media isn’t the same capital outlay as, say, direct mail. But the big surprise to most companies who learn to do it well is that it takes careful planning, dedication of significant time, and long term commitment. It’s not something you can just slap on the tail end of a marketing plan when the budget gets cut. Yes, the tools themselves are less expensive, but overall, social media requires a deeper investment.
When planning: Budget your time as well as your dollars. Things like blogging and Twitter are increasingly powerful business tools, but they’re time consuming too. Do an audit of all of your marketing efforts from the past year, and determine how much time you spent as well as how much money. Find the dogs, and get rid of them. Then plow those resources into expanding your horizons and integrating new social media endeavors into the plan. It’s not about finding more resources, it’s about better allocating the ones you have.
The best kind of marketing plans should be built on the backs of business goals, not pure communication goals. If you look at social media holistically instead of transactionally, your marketing planning will be more efficient, effective, and give you the flexibility to adapt along the way.

Get your customer service department in order.
While social media is often described as an extension of marketing, it really has its roots in customer service. It provides a clear path for communication between company and customer, not unlike the phone or email.
If you have kinks in your customer service mechanism, now is the time to fix that. You need to have not only a clear flow of information and a plan for how to solve issues as they arise, but you need to have the right people and mindsets in place. If the people manning the phones or the email aren’t serving the customer well now, social media will only ever highlight the shortfalls.
Take the time to ensure that your customer service department is running like a well oiled machine before you open up even more channels for dialogue. The most straightforward way to find out: ask your customers what THEY think.
Set up listening posts. Lots of them.
You need to know what’s being said about you across the web, plain and simple. Don’t be the last to know, because it puts you forever in a reactionary state.
Participating directly in social media is not for everyone – it takes time, money, resources, commitment, and careful planning. But listening and paying attention can – and should – be within every company’s reach. It can frame your existing business practices, too.
There are myriad free tools available like Google Blog Search, Twitter Search, and even Technorati. Yahoo Pipes can provide a wealth of information, too. If you’re not yet ready to participate in the dialogue, at least capture and understand how it’s happening around you, and ensure that your other business decisions are being made with this knowledge in mind.
Set aside resources.
Yep, both people and money. The misconception is often that social media is “free”, because the tools don’t cost a great deal of money to use. But there are costs associated with executing a social media plan, in terms of both human and capital resources.
Your social media endeavors will almost certainly fail unless you’re consciously dedicating people hours to stewarding them, and financial resources to customizing programs that can best capture your company’s voice and those of your customers.
Get outta dodge.
Do your research. Get out on the web, and wander. If you’ve been listening, you’ll start discovering the places where your customers are congregating. Set up profiles on these networks, and participate in the conversations that are happening. Visit the blogs that people are writing throughout your industry or focus area, and comment on them to share your perspective.
Your credibility once you launch social media efforts of your own will be increased exponentially if you are a valued, contributing member of the communities you wish to reach.
Invest behind the firewall.
Internal education cannot be underestimated. When done well, social media will seep into every area of your business, from the front office to production to communications and the corner suite. Take the time to educate your colleagues on why integrating these tools into the mix is important to your company.
Hear their concerns and hesitations. Tap them for a diverse and multi-faceted look at your customers through their eyes. Ask them how they think you should be better communicating with your customers online. Engaged team members are more likely to participate with enthusiasm and share their knowledge to better the company. What you learn may just surprise you.
Know what success means to you.
Goalsetting and outlining objectives is a critical part of just about any aspect of business. You set budgetary goals, operational goals, production and customer service goals. You need to set social media goals, too, and they should be in terms of the quality of your customer relationships. If you cannot place a value on qualitative success metrics like customer satisfaction, loyalty, repeat business or referrals, or articulate the importance that your customers hold to you in terms other than the balance sheet, social media will only highlight that.
What’s missing? Are you embarking on a social media program? What are you examining to ensure that you’re starting off on the right foot?

If your one of the fortunate ones whose company culture embraces transparency and honest communication, you’re a step ahead of the game. But if you’re starting from scratch, just where do you start?

1) Lose the Jargon
The term “social media” is intimidating to many who haven’t spent any time here. Words like blogging, Twitter, Facebook, community, and social networking can still put quizzical looks on executives’ faces.
So when making your case, skip the social media buzzwords and focus on explaining social media tools in terms of what they actually do.Take blogging, for instance. How about describing it as a collection of discussions on your website that allow your readers to comment and respond? Or talk about microblogging platforms like Twitter as an online customer service mechanism.

2) Take it Out of the Marketing Silo.
A truly effective social media plan touches nearly every aspect of a business. It’s not limited to communications (though these pros are often the sherpas of a social media program). And a big fear among companies adopting their first social media programs is that they’re going to have to reinvent wheel, start over, or turn their current practices inside out.
In reality, social media can enhance and expand your existing business functions, making them more effective.
Point out the benefits that can be realized in improved and more efficient customer service (like Comcast on Twitter). Illustrate how you might gather product insights and improvements for your production group (like Dell did with IdeaStorm). Explain how more dynamic and visible internal communication can lift employee morale (like Best Buy’s Blue Shirt Nation).
3) Listen and Benchmark.

Spend 30 days using and setting up listening posts. Set up Google Alerts and run Twitter Search queries for your company, relevant business and industry keywords, and the same for your competitors.
Map out your results, including quantitative (number of mentions) and qualitative (tone, sentiment, or “meatiness”) criteria. If neither your nor your competitors’ brands are being talked about online much yet, you can illustrate the opportunity to enter the conversation online and lead your industry. If you’re being mentioned but your competitors own a larger share of the conversation, time to look at leveling the playing field. And if you’re in the fortunate position to have great presence online, focus on how to maintain and grow that in the future.
4) Articulate your goals.
There’s absolutely no way you can measure your success unless you set the goal first. Spend time to understand what you want out of social media (and never just jump into it because “everyone else is”). Do you want to increase subscribers to your company newsletter? Improve customer retention or referrals? Decrease negative customer service feedback? Think overall strategies, not tactics, and map each goal to your social media strategy.
5) Steward the culture, not just the operations.
Social media is as much a cultural shift for some companies as it is a procedural one. In addition to adding and evolving business functions, you’re asking your business to look at their customer communications through a new lens.
As the champion for social media, understand the adjustments you’re asking your colleagues to make in their individual roles within the company. Realize that moving from controlled messaging to transparent communication is a difficult and scary move for companies who may have been doing things the “old fashioned way” for years. Internally processes may have to change or be discussed in detail before the real social media work can begin. Be patient, reassuring, and stay focused on the ultimate goals.

6) Demonstrate that it works.
Case studies, case studies, case studies. There are some amazing resources on the web all about companies doing social media, and doing it well. For example, Peter Kim has a great big list of companies and their efforts to participate in this space. Check out Delicious.com for bookmarks that others have shared on the topic. And a good old fashioned Google search on “social media case studies” will unearth enough to keep you busy for days.
Successful social media is methodical while finding its roots in passion and genuine interest in opening new avenues for communication with your customers. By focusing on the overall value and benefit that it brings to your business, you’ll be able to not only communicate social media’s importance, but encourage others to join you and discover its potential.