If you haven't got anything to say, keep quiet.

This might be a bit of a rant, so sorry about that. But there’s some stuff being spouted by so-called social media gurus/experts/thought leaders [delete as appropriate] that’s driving me nuts.

The latest is a post I saw today by someone who shall remain nameless about the ‘optimum’ number of tweets you should send in a day (apparently it’s 22). This gem of marketing information is designed to help companies understand and plan how much resource they should throw at Twitter.

Is this really a valuable lesson in using Twitter as a marketing tool? Doesn’t it depend on what you want to say? I mean, I could fill up my weekly quota on a Saturday evening in front of the X Factor. It wouldn’t help our marketing much. And if you’re issuing company information 22 times a day, then God help you. And your dwindling band of followers.

It just smacks of the bad old days of PR, when a client brief would come in that made you want to cry, by claiming that one of the PR ‘objectives’ was to issue 48 press releases a year. No news, mind, just press releases.

I’m not pretending to be a Twitter expert (does such a thing exist?). But I think the only thing people care about on Twitter is whether you’re interesting. There are some people I follow who don’t say anything for a few days, but when they do, they really make me laugh. Or are a really useful source of information. There are others whom I’ve un-followed because they do nothing but self-promote.

If you’re a normal person, there will be some days when you just don’t have much to say. So maybe you just shouldn’t say anything. 

And now I'll take my own advice, log off and have a large glass of wine. 

No single discipline ‘owns’ social media.

What's with the debate about who owns social media - is it marketing, is it communications, is it sales, is it customer service?

You might as well say, who owns the phone: comms or customer service? Print media: Advertising or PR? Facebook: comms, advertising, customer service and marketing? (Or just you and your mates?)

I remember this debate about search, when it was still a fairly new marketing tool 10 years or so ago. We were involved with Overture as it launched into the UK, and there was a big issue around whether sales, web development, IT, marketing or ecommerce heads ‘owned’ search. Now, of course, it’s seen as a broad sales and marketing discipline and is integrated (or should be) to every part of the business, depending on what outcome you’re trying to achieve. Communicators use search to support campaigns; as do advertisers; as do marketing heads in launching a new product; as do customer support teams to help people looking to resolve an issue; and so on.  It fits into the overall business strategy.

The same will happen with social media. Every department in the business will ‘own’ part of it. PR / comms are becoming much more social. Advertisers are using Facebook, or highly targeted social advertising, and incorporating social media to their campaigns (is the Meerkat advertising or comms, now Orlov has his own Twitter feed?). Search is becoming social; BT Care is a great example of customer service over Twitter; and you can sell through Facebook.

The ‘who owns what’ debate is completely irrelevant. More to the point - where are your audiences, and what do they want to do over what channel? Ultimately, consumers own social media, and it’s up to businesses to respond accordingly.

The nice things clients do

We all have favourite clients. And when you really like a client, you put in extra effort. You’ll stay late to finish a feature to make certain it hits deadline; you make sure the copy for an article is perfect; you think of them whenever an opportunity comes your way to get them extra coverage; you’ll brainstorm new ideas to get them better exposure; you point out details on their blog or website that could improve their positioning. It would be lovely to say we all do that for all our clients - but the truth is there are some that get special treatment.

A new client asked me recently in the pitch process what would make them an important client to us. I think they were expecting me to say the usual ‘we grow with your success’, ‘we value all our clients’ or even ‘increase your fee’. While I suppose those things do matter - cheesy as they sound - they’re not really what make a team go the extra mile for a client.

The beauty of having your own business is that you can choose your clients, and it really isn’t just the financial stuff that matters. Sometimes, it’s worth taking a hit and not working with a client you know is going to be a nightmare.  (I’ve worked with a few of those in the past, and I’m never doing it again, if I can possibly help it.) Some people don’t need to like their clients, and they’re luckier (and probably much richer) than I am, but to me, it matters to get on with someone you’re working with.

The things that make a client really important to me are:

• I care about what they do. They don’t have to be earth shattering, just interesting.
• I get on with them, and they’re decent people (I’d find it hard to work with someone who was racist, or homophobic, for example). I think it’s a fact of life that if we like someone, we do more for them, fee or no fee.
• We can laugh together. That might be on a conference call, or over lunch, but a completely humourless client is very hard work.
• You get the occasional ‘thank you’ when something’s worked really well. It goes such a long way - if you’ve slogged over something it matters that the client appreciates it. I know it’s what we get paid for, but we’re people, not machines.
• They treat us like grown ups. They pay us for our skills, not for their ego. There’s nothing worse than giving your best advice for it to be ignored, or your best copy for it to be massacred, or your best ideas to be nicked and passed off by someone else. If they ask advice because they want it, and listen to it, and even act on it, it makes us much more likely to give it our best consideration.

It’s hard to know whether the relationship’s going to work at the pitch stage. I always think the best clients start with meetings that don’t involve creds presentations, or pitch ideas, but just a conversation. You get a feel for whether the relationship is going to work or not.

Maybe we should build some more ‘gut instinct’ stuff into the pitch process (maybe the lead qualification checklist should start with ‘can we spend time with them without wanting to self harm?’). Do others do this already? Does it matter if you like a client or not?

Managing a social media crisis

Yomego, eModeration and Carrot have combined brainpower in this white paper/guide to managing a social media crisis. You can download it here. Would be very interested to hear people's thoughts / experiences, either on this blog, or over at the Breakfast Bunker Briefing blog.

How To Avoid A Social Media Disaster (eModeration, Carrot Communications And Yomego)

Here are the slides from our breakfast bunker briefing. White paper on the subject to follow.

How To Avoid A Social Media Disaster (eModeration, Carrot Communications And Yomego)

View more presentations from eModeration.