However, it's far more common for a company to just hope for the ability to boost its direct sales. Just as Ginny pinpointed architects and contractors, any company should use their research to find their best potential audience, and the influencers within that group. If a fabric company's measurable objectives are to sell 2,000 yards of fabric by the end of the year, then their social media guru should focus on finding that community who will buy it: fashion students, stay-at-home moms, interior designers, etc. Your job as a business owner is to know, and specify your goals. Your social media manager's job is to find great customers and influencers, and cultivate the relationship. Soon, they can begin offering tangible items, like, say, special coupons and sewing workshops, which will directly boost your business.
Says Harte, "If you know what goals you're striving toward, you'll know the right strategy or tactic. No sense on spending money on YouTube videos if the people you're targeting aren't watching them."
Dig Deeper: How to Use Internet Market Research Tools
Hiring a Social Media Specialist: Set a Budget
Now that you know your potential audience as well as your goals, it's time to decide how much effort (think: time, money) you should invest in online exposure. Here are your three options:
1. DIY: set up the social media tools yourself, and distribute the responsibility to your current employees. Unless you're a social media guru yourself, this option could quite likely be a recipe for failure. Primarily, explains Harte, it's hard to join the social media world if you don't know the language. "Folks on social media can be a very picky bunch. It's important to understand the basic etiquette. You wouldn't walk into a party and promote your business, because people would think it's rude. It's the same online." Additionally, poor execution can have the opposite effect – having a Twitter feed of press releases looks unprofessional and out of date – not to mention a waste of your employees' time.
2. Hire a consultant. Hiring a strategy firm to set up your tools and teach you maintenance techniques can be highly effective. The investment isn't too big, because it's temporary. Additionally, strategy and consulting firms often already have the resources needed to make your social media sites successful. However, you need to make sure you can commit to maintaining your online presence once they leave. Once the initiative's put in place, can you effectively keep the conversation going?
3. Hire a full-time employee. The last, and most effective, option is to take on a staff member dedicated to work exclusively toward your online media goals. Although this is the priciest option (a full-time or part-time salary's worth), hire a good one and you can be assured that your goals will be met. Skalski says that maintaining Cree's presence gave her the opportunity to take the skeleton of the strategy and be able to mold it, continuously, to garner more audience interest.
Dig Deeper: How to Write a Social Media Policy
Hiring a Social Media Specialist: Find Your Guru
The last step is to find the best social media guru for the job you want done. Here are Harte's rules to know which ones you can trust.
1. They're marketers to the core. "If they lead off the conversation with tools, that's not a good sign," she says. "Any good consultant should understand marketing, PR, and business strategy." Is your to-be specialist throwing around buzzwords like Twitter, Tumblr, Yelp, and Groupon? Run away. A good media guru should be well aware of step one: research comes before blogging.
2. They're realistic, and mindful that time is money. "A good one will tell you there's no magic bullet," she says. "This work is not scalable. If someone's offering you a box of chocolate, it's an indication that they don't understand that it's time consuming to prepare a company for the long run. While tools are free, time is not." Although your potential guru should have a plan, that plan should not include tangible dates for overnight results, because the Web is not a socially reliable sphere.
3. They understand how to effectively "do business on their own playground." It doesn't matter whether your guru is old or young, with a business or a bachelor's degree, or an expert or novice in the company's field. Harte says that "it's a matter of who understands people and relations the best," and knows how to employ their strengths in a sphere that people generally use to socialize. Skalski, for example, does not have a background in LED lighting or energy efficiency. "If you find someone with the skills who knows how to build and communicate with a community, that can work better than hiring someone simply because they're in the industry," she suggests.
Dig Deeper: How to Hire
Hiring a Social Media Specialist: Take a Deep Breath. Relax.
A social media guru is becoming a very standard new need, but not one that has to overwhelm you. Once you've determined your goals, set your budget and found your guru, it's time to refocus on your product or service. Ideally, your guru will effectively find and fill your niche in the social cyber world.
