Jason Mlicki, Principal of Rattleback, interviewed Amy Marshall, COO of Fathom, a digital marketing and analytics firm on the topic of using social media to attract clients in a professional services firms. Below is a transcript of that conversation.
About Fathom
Jason:
To get started why don’t you tell us a little about Fathom and what you do.
Amy:
Fathom is a full-service digital marketing agency so we’re doing everything online. We’re not doing billboards; we’re not doing advertising; we’re doing search engine optimization; we’re doing paid search, social media, blogger outreach, anything that focuses on integrated strategy online. My background is really with marketing programs, sales, and channel management with large organizations. We formed the Webbed Marketing team in 2006 which then was acquired by Fathom so we’ve gotten a great opportunity to be interjected into this marketing space back in 2006 when it first started and just really been able to grow in the market and been able to continue to learn from it as well.
On Social Media and Digital Strategy
Jason:
Tell me a little bit about how a professional services firm should be thinking about social media in the context of their overall digital marketing efforts.
Amy:
I think with these types of firms, they should really think about social media being an extension of their brand and their marketing. If they’re going to get involved in social media, they need to do it and do it well. They can’t just dip their toes in the water; they really have to execute it on an ongoing basis and kind of build up that relationship. What we see a lot of times happen is they get involved and do it for a few months and then they drop off. [And, that is a mistake].
An option they might want to consider is having a CEO or an executive represent them as a spokesperson on the social networks. Essentially, develop a personal brand for the company. Sometimes that really has a great impact on the audience—people tend to relate a little bit better with the spokesperson so that might be another way to integrate with their brand to use the social networks for that kind of marketing.
Social Media and Thought Leadership
Jason:
Last fall, the Association of Management Consulting Firms released a research study titled “How Consulting Firms are Making Their Marketing More Sociable.” Essentially, the intent of the research was to look at the relationship between thought leadership and social media marketing and see trends across that space. There were a couple of data points that came out of the study that I found actually particularly interesting. Here they are:
- Only 57% of firms allow website visitors to share content via social channels.
- Only 45% of firms allow their visitors to actually “like” their content.
- Only 55% of firms allow their visitors to comment on their content.
What would you say to these firms who seem reluctant to make their content more social?
Amy:
I think this one is really tough especially for brands who have always had control; and maybe that’s how they are internally—they’ve always been able to control what’s being said about them. And plus, the regulated ones—you know, healthcare, pharma or anything like that—they have to be able to control that. But, I think if you’re going to extend that to social media, you do have to be prepared to allow that conversation to happen. And it is really tough for firms that are not ready to let go–they need to maybe test it in some spaces. Test it on Facebook—you know allow those likes and comments and monitor it very, very closely.
You do need to monitor, you do need to set up the process internally. If something bad is posted out there, you need a process built up to take care of it. It may be once some of those things are put in place, the comfort level with the legal team, the comfort level with the compliance team will be a little bit better. So, just think about some of those processes.
Jason:
Where do you see that fear coming from? From legal and compliance?
Amy:
Yes, generally. Sometimes it’s coming from leadership, but if it’s a regulated industry, it’s actually coming from the compliance team and the legal team.
Social Media Tools & Resources
Jason:
Are there any specific tools and resources that you would recommend for firms to help improve their social media marketing programs?
Amy:
There are a couple of tools and a couple of processes that are best practices that I would probably recommend. If you’re going to engage in social media, make sure you have one person that owns it. It doesn’t mean they have to come up with all the content but one person that is responsible for getting the content, one person that is responsible for monitoring the effort. That’s the best practice that needs to be implemented in any organization.
To make it easier to manage ongoing, there are tools out there. We use Hootsuite; it’s a great tool to manage all your networks in one place. You can do your posting from there; you can do your monitoring from there. It kind of brings it all together and makes your life a lot simpler from a corporate standpoint. Some other tools I would say for monitoring—there are some free tools out there that are really good—you could use Google Alerts, you can use one called Social Mention—those are all free tools that make the monitoring piece very, very simple for your organization. There’s another one also called Netvibes—that sets up a nice dashboard. So there are some really good tools accessible that can make your life easier.
Jason:
So HootSuite is reaching across platforms now? It was Twitter only when it launched, correct?
Amy:
Yes, now there’s Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+.
Jason:
It’s paid only—correct?
Amy:
Yes, there’s a paid version. There’s a free component, too, you just don’t get very much, depending on how large your organization is.
Jason:
Have you used any of the more expensive tools like Radian 6, which I believe is now part of the Salesforce Marketing Cloud?
Amy:
We use a lot of those actually for in-depth research, for monitoring as well. We use Radian6, we use Alterian SM2, and we now use a tool called Sysomos, which is extremely powerful. There are a lot of paid tools out there.
Breaking Through the Next Plateau on Your Social Platforms
Jason:
I talk with a lot of firms all across the country and, regardless of the size of the firm—I see firms that have thousands of employees or maybe 30-40 employees—and frequently I see firms plateau on their social efforts. They’ll maybe reach a Twitter following of 1000 people or a Facebook fan group of maybe 300 people, or maybe a group of LinkedIn company followers of about 300. What suggestions would you have for a firm that has hit that plateau and is struggling to extend the reach of what they’re doing?
Amy:
I think there are a lot of engagement things that you can do on social networks just to get people kind of excited about your content. As simple as it sounds, contests work really well. Whether you’re running contests out of Facebook or Twitter or now Instagram, I think those tend to really get people engaged and get excited about what you have to say because it’s really more about them than it is about you. So contests are good. You can run some trivia on your site; tips and tricks are always good because people always like to read those facts.
One other thing that you could do to try to extend your reach is to go back and try to identify those influencers within your market similar to when you first did your social network. Find out who the people that are talking about your products and services or about your industry as a whole and try connecting with them to build a relationship because they are the ones that have that reach—they have those 5000 fans on Facebook. That’s who you really want to connect with to extend your reach.
On Google+
Jason:
What should we be doing with Google+?
Amy:
You know, I don’t think it is the network that everyone thought it was going to be but we haven’t abandoned it yet. A lot of what we use Google+ for with clients is posting content out there and that’s about it. But, one caveat with that is to make the content very search-friendly. Make sure you use good keywords. You know that people search on Google for your firm and your services—just keep posting content out there. That’s about all we’re doing with it at this point. We’re not seeing the circles take of; all we’re seeing the content you’re posting come up in search results so it’s important from a Google aspect, yes.
Future Trends in Social Media
Jason:
What do you see as the most critical trend facing the social media lanscape in the next 2 or 3 years?
Amy:
I think what we’re seeing happen is people using social media data to make decisions within their business, for their marketing, or how to target their customers. Similar to how we used to use focus groups, we bring those folks into the room and ask them those questions about your brand. Now, we’re able to do that with social media. It’s preliminary at this point, but we can use those tools like Radian 6, SM2 or Sysomos, to gather that data and do some analysis on it and try to make those predictions about what’s going to happen or what should be good for your business. So I think that’s probably the biggest thing. People are referring to it a lot as Big Data.
