Meetings. They can be the bane of my existence. So many meetings are just not useful. Or they require a feat of Herculean strength for me to keep them on track.
It’s rare for me to actually look forward to a meeting, and I wish that wasn’t the case. There is so much potential here to increase trust between the client and consultant. And so often, this is the place where I lose some of that trust.
Why? Missing information and not being prepared are two of the biggest culprits. A client is most likely to show that they don’t respect social media when they show up ill-prepared for meetings. And it tells me they treat social media more like something to perform rather than something that is vital to their business.
I can’t do much to help with that attitude. But I can help you be better prepared for your next meeting with your social media consultant. And then they can see how serious you are about what they’re doing.
What will I hear about on social media?
This is usually where communication breaks down with a client. I’ll email them that I’m seeing something that affects their social media being discussed online. It’s the first I’m hearing about it, and I have no idea how to respond. What is their response? “Oh yeah, we were wondering if that might pop up.” It feels like a punch to the gut when I hear that.
Why is it so important to include anything that might pop up on social media on your meeting agenda? We can talk through exactly what it is. Is it good? Is it bad? Or maybe somewhere in-between? Does it require a response? What does that response look like? This is all something we can get through during a meeting and create a plan in case it does pop up. And we can be so much more responsive to the needs and wants of our audience.
If your response to this is that you don’t want to share all of this with your consultant, that’s a much bigger problem. Do you not trust them? Why? What can you do to build that trust? Explore all of this and work through it. It’s important to trust your social media consultant, so you can prepare for all eventualities. Otherwise, they will always be caught unaware. And you’ll lose precious time that will help you control the situation.
What is coming up?
This is seemingly a no-brainer, but yet it doesn’t always happen. I’ve had clients not tell me they are launching the registration for a big event until the day of the launch. This is likely fueled by the idea that all I have to do is post the event and people will register. That’s not exactly true.
There are absolute die hard community members who will be looking for the event. They will register as soon as it is posted. This is at best a handful of people. Everyone else? They’re going to need some convincing and/or reminding to get their registration in. So if there is nothing crossing their social media feed, it’s unlikely they will register. That means we have to make a plan prior to the opening of registration to get that into their social media feed. Posting a link is not a plan.
This is the same with resources, big news and whatever else you want your audience to see. Otherwise your hard work will be buried, because there is no time to craft a post that will get into those feeds. And creating a plan, along with any necessary content pieces, takes far longer than one hour. So bring these items to a meeting with your consultant. You can brainstorm together and divide any work that needs to be done.
When will you be out of the office?
I see a snowball is starting to happen on social media, and I need to talk to the client now to get it to stop. I email and message the client since it is urgent. The response is an out of office reply. I’ve already wasted valuable time, and now I have to figure out who I can talk to about this upcoming issue.
This is a regular occurrence. Client contacts forget to let me know they’re not going to be in the office. And then they don’t tell me who I need to talk to while they are out. So I’m scrambling when something comes up.
Having this information allows me to contact the correct person and get a response faster when seconds count. And there are so many instances where the seconds count on social media.
Keep focused during your meetings
Respecting a social media consultant’s time builds trust so fast. For a consultant, time is money. If they’re constantly in meetings that are more for show and are consistently going long, then they are losing money. Especially with how the economy is going right now, it’s almost an unforgivable crime.
So make every moment count in your meetings and give back time whenever possible. It will go a long way towards building a strong, long-lasting relationship with your consultant.
What do you wish social media consultants brought to meetings?