One of the biggest Social Media fails that I see regularly is a social media manager not being “social” with the very client he/she is working with. In almost all of my initialmeetings with perspective clients I hear about the SoMe manager that is employed currently who does little more than send a bill each month. I spoke with one business owner who shared that they had not heard from their SoMe manager in over 6 months. If that were not bad enough, it took that individual over a week to respond to a request for content to be shared on the different sites. To that I can only say run, run fast and hard away from that firm.

 

For the life of me I cannot figure out why someone would get into the Social Media business and NOT be social with the very people they are representing in the social space.

 

 What do I mean by being Social with clients. 

 

I mean just what it suggests. If you have not a had some sort of communication, phone call, meeting, digital meeting, face to face….something in over a month I believe you are doing your client a disservice. Don’t we all preach that Social is best served with a healthy helping of “taking the connection deeper”? So why would you not apply that to your clients. Often I will drop a call on a client just to “touch bases”, invariably I learn some valuable piece of information during the conversation which in turn helps me to serve that client more efficiently. Besides, I actually like my clients, their success is my success, and tackling a challenge or campaign together is rewarding. The bottom line is this…if we work together and succeed, it is a win-win. Mind you I am not suggesting that you become social circle buddies, but you have to communicate.

 

 

Lets take a look at the many ways in which technology gives us no excuses.

> Cell phone, everyone has one, everyone is available

> Face to face, if you are in the same geographic area, there is no better communication method then face to face

> Texting, while not the optimal choice for business communication, it is an option

> Skype, a great solution for the long distance client. Technology has made the world smaller and doing business over long distances is pretty much a norm these days.

> Google Plus hangouts, an outstanding option for a small business meeting. The video and audio technology end of the hangout is awesome.

> Email, many of you that read my blog regularly know I am not a fan of the monthly client report with arrows, pie charts etc. However that does mean that I do not share analytic’s with my clients. I, like all good SoMe managers are constantly checking performance metrics, and it is great to share trending success. I also share the bad news as well, it is all value based information that will only assist us in our goals.

 

However you accomplish your communication goals, make sure you make the effort to be a resource for your clients. Take the time to go the extra mile and listen to what they issues they are seeing from their end. Working together is a much more effective practice…