One of the biggest complaints I hear from clients is that they “tried social media” and it “didn’t work for them.”

I usually follow up by asking, “Well, what did you try?” Nine times out of ten, the answer is that a friend/daughter/neighbor etc. set up a Facebook page for them. This is shortly followed by gripes about how they got no business leads or sales from it.

Social media is unique, because, unlike a lot of other trades, it is something with which people feel familiar. Facebook is now the most visited site on the web and is being rapidly adopted by even the most novice internet users (ie: my grandparents). While Twitter has yet to reach the same level of popularity as Facebook, people are confident enough in their social media savvy to think that Twitter is something they can “figure out” when they have time.

Despite this familiarity, social media is still a specialty, especially in order to be successful. It is something you need to invest resources in to see a return. If your business needed help with taxes or money, you’d hire an accountant. Most business owners don’t handle “money stuff” themselves, because it is not their area of expertise. If a business needed a logo or website, they’d hire a designer, because in all likelihood, they would not know how to design it themselves or be familiar with the process needed to do so.

This is where people like me come in. There aren’t a lot of us out there, but Social Media Strategists exist! Like accountants and designers, we can support this specific area of your business and help make sure it is integrated with the branding and overall marketing and sales goals of your business.

So how do you know that hiring a strategist will be more effective than paying your cousin’s neighbor’s 17-year old sister to manage your social media? Well, a seasoned strategist will prove their value to you from the beginning.

A few of the services I offer to my clients include:

Content Strategy:
What should you be saying to connect to your audience? What content is driving interaction? What conversations should your brand become a part of?

Channel Strategy:
Which of the many social media channels should your brand have a presence on? Which channel will be most effective for communicating particular messages? Where is the conversation happening?

Monitoring:
What are people saying about your brand? Where are they saying it? Who are the influencers in the conversation about your brand?

Measurement:
What content and channels have been most effective? How have social media efforts and campaigns performed?

So if you are starting to feel like social media “doesn’t work” for your company, consider bringing on a Social Media Strategist to help kick-start your efforts and give you the results you’re looking for.

[This post was originally featured on the OneForty blog]