Can Social Media Marketers Make It Work?

I have been brutally honest this week about some of the problems I am facing with my own work. I recently ended a very successful campaign with a client. It was 3 months and it was lucrative. During that time I was actively developing new business as I knew when the current client relationship ended I needed to find other sources of income.

I got close with a bunch of clients who ultimately pulled back at the last second. One of them pulled an offer almost immediately after I accepted it, which I suppose goes with the territory, but which I found in terrible taste.

I’ll be even more honest right now. I initially though social media work would be both lucrative and easy. It’s not why I started my business, but I would be lying if I didn’t admit that the fantasies were present in the back of my mind. But getting rich quick was never in my mind.

Rather, what I am trying to do is to establish myself as someone who brings tremendous value to clients, who is on the front lines of experimentation and frankly, as someone that will be in high demand as social media becomes more embedded in the everyday fabric of business.

But there are a lot of problems to the long-term sustainability of my business as I see it. Some of them are professional, some of them are financial, some creative. I’d like to sketch them out here as based on my previous posts on the subject there are a lot of people out there grappling with same or similar issues. The engagement and support I have gleaned from the wider community has been tremendous and I will continue to give back to that community as often as I can.

The Recession Is Dampening Spending

I have no doubt that had I geared up my business few years ago, before the financial crisis put its big black boot right on the throat of New York City, my business would be gangbusters. Businesses, especially in the hospitality sector, were spending money left and right on all manner of expansion and PR. Social media was still new and I could have got my foot in the door a whole lot quicker.

The reality now is much different. Hundreds of restaurants have failed. Many more are on the brink. People are pulling their marketing expenditures by cutting back or excising entirely their marketing and PR budgets . Many are trying to do it on their own. For now, this is what they need to do.

In this climate, a new consultant, even one less expensive and more personalized than traditional restaurant PR, is fighting against the odds. If a firm is going to spend money on marketing, they want to do it somewhere that is known, that is safe and comfortable, even if its not ideally what they want. I do not know a single restaurateur who is happy with their PR agency. They all say the same thing. They don’t do anything for me and its too expensive. Of course, this is one-sided and we should all know that PR firms do do things. But perception is reality no?

Even taking these circumstances into account, what hospitality business are NOT likely to do is give an outsider money for something that isn’t proven and is in fact, in its infancy.

The Question of Scale

The next issue to bring up is the one of scale. Can an independent consultant afford to work for brands and businesses that are accustomed to a certain price point for marketing and PR? Most PR companies charge between $2500-5000 a month for their services per restaurant. The reason they can charge that is that they have achieved an economy of scale. Sign up 50 restaurants at that amount and you have enough income to hire enough people to satisfy your clients’ needs.

But what gets lost often enough in this mix is that as you grow larger as an agency, you naturally lose some (ok A LOT) of that personalized, tailored service that is essential for successful marketing and PR. As firms grow, the raw ideation is passed off to lower level employees while the owner and client managers spend more of their time on developing new business and ensuring existing clients are happy.

That is not to say that low level employees are not creative or engaged. Often they are even more engaged then their seniors. But the fact of the matter is, the larger you grow the harder it is too tailor your strategies specifically to your clients. I don’t know exactly why it happens, I just know it does.

You end up using a lot of the same tactics, contacts and maneuvers. And before long, they lose their efficacy. Add to that a generational shift in the operations and business foundations of the media, press and marketing fields in general, and you have a formula for disaster, and opportunity. But mostly disaster.

The Dilemma Is Money

The crux of this whole thing comes down to dollars and cents. At least for now. Ideally, working with 3 clients a month at $2500-3500 a month is the sweet spot. That is enough to ensure one has the resources and freedom to be as creative as possible. But creativity is not the only thing. It ensures one has enough money to stay current with trends, anticipate developments in the industry before they occur and prepare clients for those changes. It is enough to stay engaged on a daily basis, work through your weekly punch list, work the hours we need to work. Hopefully, I will get to that point sometime soon.

But as of now, clients almost universally are not going to spend that kind of money on social media marketing. It’s just too soon. So I, and we, are stuck with the conundrum of being able to extract not much more than $1500 per client. With 3 clients, you are breaking even. In a city like NYC, you aren’t putting any money away and you are working very hard.

If you try to scale up to 7 or 10 clients, you are left with the problem of losing that humanized, tailored service. The kind of service that only comes from being able to devote a great deal of attention, face time and just pure brainstorming to individual clients. Just try being creative in 8 different directions at once. Maybe there are those out there who can do that…but I have no problem admitting that it isn’t me. No Sir!

So What’s A Social Media Professional To Do?

Honestly, I don’t have the answers. But if I were going to proffer a solution I would say that, in the meantime, if you are looking to build an independent social marketing firm, one has to take what they can in the meantime.  I am in this business because I love working with small businesses and the people behind them. There is no shortage of amazing people doing amazing things. Companies are being built, products are being designed. Firms need help around the periphery of their business, especially marketing and PR.

So for now, we are caught in a kind of holding pattern, where you simply need to take the customers you can, pay your rent and don’t expect a rich catch anytime soon. If the economy begins to improve, there will be more opportunities to scale up, charge more, etc. Social media is maturing very quickly. In fact, it has to because it is both so new and so powerful, potentially.

But if the economy does not improve, whether nationally or locally, we could be up in the air here for awhile. If that is the case, I hope you really love social media marketing. Because none of us is going to get rich anytime soon. It’s not why we are here. That is not to say that I fully expect to make a good healthy living in the future as someone with deep experience and a roster of clients in different industries. I want my skill set to be as wide and deep as possible. I also hope to collaborate with the very best people. I’d love to work hand in hand with a terrific graphic designer and developer. I am also very interested in the mobile market.

The tide will turn. Social media is already revolutionizing the way brands market, the way consumers consume and everything else in between. One day, we will charge, and receive premiums for our services. But that day is not today.

Image Source: ‘Playingwithbrushes’ on Flickr

Tagged as: PR Hell, Social Media Predictions, Social Media Success, Traditional PR vs. Social Media