Hitting the Reset Button on Your Social Media Strategy

By: Judy Sparks

I love January.  For me, I find it to be the most invigorating month of the year.  December–actually, all of Q4–seems to suck the life out me, but something happens that last week of the year between Christmas and January 1.  It’s like someone pressed the reset button.

January is the month every year that my clients seem the most excited about marketing.  They are highly motivated to drive revenue and seem to be more open to trying new things.

This year, social media seems to be what my clients are talking about the most.  While most of them still have a lot of questions about social media and how to utilize social platforms to drive business, at least social media has made its way into the conversation.  This is a 180 degree shift from January 2013.

So, what kind of questions are they asking me?  Here are a few examples:

• “You mean if I go look at someone’s LinkedIn profile, they can see I looked at it… that’s just not right.”
• “So how do we get 30,000+ followers on our LinkedIn Page like HOK?”
• “You mean you accept LinkedIn invitations from people you don’t know?  Why?”
• “Do you really think my audience is using social media?  How do you know?”
• “This all sounds great but who is going to do this?”

By the way, these are questions from actual CEOs of major AEC companies. I really respect that they are asking these questions, as simple as it may seem.  The truth is that many AEC executives are hesitant to integrate social media into their marketing efforts.  Why?  In most cases, they simply don’t understand how it works and how to monetize it and measure the ROI. They only focus on what they perceive to be the downside.  I find once they understand the “up side”, a strong business case can be made and most will adopt and embrace social media.