While there’s a treasure trove of online content over how firms should be using social media, there’s considerably less information on the ‘selling’ part of it – by vendors/ agencies, that is.
Am I an authority to talk about this? Of course not – there are people who are significantly more qualified on this topic. But I do have some amount of hands-on experience ‘selling’ social media outreach to my (our – Text 100’s) PR clients – either as a stand-alone offering or as an add-on to regular PR – about 70 odd opportunities to propose, to be precise, if you include all the direct and indirect ways that I’ve added my inputs.
From the time I started this activity – January 2008, if I recall accurately – things have changed, for the better. Back then, it was a hard sell, with significant effort in the background work. These days, with most clients having some background knowledge on other corporates/ brands’ efforts using social media for some purpose (thanks to mainstream media coverage), it is a lot easier, though budgets are still under scrutiny, as always.
The two critical attributes that continue to be important for the ‘sell’ include,
1. The ‘door-opener’
Given the PR agency’s access to the corporate communication/ marketing communication teams within clients, the first door that opens is the communications team – not the marketing team. But, I have found, in almost all cases where I’ve been part of the sell, that the communications team ropes in appropriate people from the marketing team to sit in the pitch. And that’s a fabulous trend – it helps that the team that has the bigger purse is in the meeting!
I believe it is easier for an existing communications-related vendor (PR/ advertising) to get the right set of people within the client organization for the pitch, than a rank outsider – say, an exclusive social media agency. It is a solid ‘door-opener’, but yes, given a social media agency’s credentials, this could vary.
2. One sane, intelligent voice!
These are early days of selling social media engagement in India. From that perspective, it helps if the pitching team has at least one expert…nah, one sane voice that is able to articulate the idea intelligently. Personal records in terms of number of followers on twitter or friends in Facebook do not help. But, other small things like decent comments on your blog do. Of course, case studies of your social media engagement work for other clients – however small they are – really helps.
Interestingly, from my limited experience, ROI is not the main topic of contention! It is the need for a dummies-level proposal, created in as simple a language as possible, that would help the communications/ marketing team sell social media internally to the senior management.
Scalability too, is not a point of discussion, initially. That is actually an internal discussion, within the agency. And it continues to be a problem. Execution of social media engagement plans require a team that has a similar outlook on implementing a structured plan for clients. And this is quite removed from posting a few tweets everyday or creating blog posts on behalf of a client.
Even from the pitching point of view, it is far easier to be a blogger, a twitter or facebook user. And it is quite a drastically different thing to be able to sell social media to corporates (or existing clients of other communication services).
The former is merely personal branding. It may or may not translate into the latter, but the latter does require a vastly different mindset to make the sale.
If you’re from an exclusive social media agency in India, feel free to dispute/ argue on the points above. I’m sure your point of view would be different and would make for great learning to all.
Selling social media engagement in India
While there’s a treasure trove of online content over how firms should be ‘using’ social media, there’s
considerably less information on the ‘selling’ part of it – by vendors/ sgencies, that is.
Am I an authority to talk about this? Of course not – there are people who have significantly more qualified on
this topic. But I do have some amount of hands-on experience ‘selling’ social media outreach to my (our – Text
100’s) PR clients – either as a stand-alone offering or as an add-on to regular PR.
From the time I started this activity – January 2008, if I recall accurately – things have changed, for the better.
Back then, it was a hard sell, with significant effort in the background work. These days, with most clients having
some background knowledge on other corporates/ brands’ efforts using social media for some purpose (thanks to
mainstream media coverage), it is lot easier, though budgets are still under scrutiny, as always.
The two critical attributes that continue to be important for the ‘sell’ include,
1. The ‘door-opener’
Given PR access to the corporate communication/ marketing communication teams within clients, the first door that
opens is the communications team – not the marketing team. But, I have found, in almost all cases where I’ve been
part of the sell, that the communicaions teams ropes in appropriate people from the marketing team to sit in the
pitch. And thats a fabulous trend – it helps that the team that has the bigger purse is in the meeting!
I believe it is easier for an existing communications-related vendor (PR/ advertising) to get the right set of
people within the client organization for the pitch, than a rank outsider – say, an exclusive social media agency.
It is a solid ‘door-opener’, but yes, given a social media agency’s credentials, this could vary.
2. One expert!
These are early days of selling social media engagement in India. From that perspective, it helps if the pitching
team has at least one expert…nah, one sane voice that is able to articulate the idea intelligently. Personal
records in terms of number of followers on twitter or friends in Facebook do not help, as I’ve seen in my
experience. But, other small things like decent comments on your blog do. Of course, case studies of your social
media engagement work for other clients – however small they are – really helps.
Interestingly, from my limited experience, ROI is not the main topic of contention! It is the need for a
dummies-level proposal, created in as simple a language as possible, that would help the communications/ marketing
team sell social media internally to the senior management. And, as an agency, we’ve evolved in this aspect.
Scalability too, is not a point of discussion, initially. That is actually an internal discussion, within the
agency. And continues to be a problem. Execution of social media engagement plans require a team that has a similar
outlook on implementing plans for clients. And this is quite removed from posting a few tweets everyday or creating
blog posts on behalf of a client.
Even from the pithcing point of view, it is far easier to be a blogger (for ages), a twitter or facebook user. And
it is quite a drastically different thing to be able to sell social media to corporates (or existing clients of
other communication services).
The former is merely personal branding. It may or may not translate into the latter, but the latter does require a
vastly different mindset to make the sale.
If you’re from an exclusive social media agency in India, feel free to dispute/ argue on the points above. I’m sure your point of view would be different and would make for great learning to all.