The subject of trust

We’ve sometimes worked with clients who are a little nervous about handing over the reins to us in respect of their social media posts. They don’t have the time or skills to fully commit to this aspect of their marketing, so they look at outsourcing it.

Initially, they may seem happy for us to take over their socials. After all, we have the capacity to be consistent, the expertise to know when and where to engage the client’s target audience, and the content writing skills to get their message across.

(Though this doesn’t involve the majority of our clients, the following scenario has cropped up once or twice in the past.)

Novus takes over the client’s social media marketing. A couple of weeks pass by. Then the client gets in touch with the following questions:

• ‘Why haven’t you mentioned this (some random event/piece of info we had absolutely no knowledge of)?’

• ‘The tone of the messages needs to be this, not that…’

• ‘Can you make our social posts longer?’

So…in such a situation, we regroup, reassess and rethink our strategy for said client. Another couple of weeks will pass by. Then they drop us more messages:

• ‘You should do this (includes a random post from a random company).’

• ‘The tone of the messages needs to be this, not that…’

• ‘Can you make our social posts shorter?’

At this point, we begin to suspect that what we’re putting out there on behalf of the client isn’t the problem at all. The issue is trust. The client doesn’t trust what we’re doing. They don’t trust that we’ll make a positive impact on their marketing, despite the fact we evidence results we’ve achieved when working with other clients at the outset of our relationship.

In some cases, the fear felt by the client is because they don’t understand how social media marketing works. They just concentrate solely on the content of a post; they don’t understand the strategy we’re applying and they’re oblivious to their increasing reach and engagement. They see posts from other companies that sound good to them and suggest we copy these, even though said messages are not on brand with all the other content we’re putting out for them.

They may want us to piggyback on National Days or Bank Holidays, but unless these days have particular relevance to the client’s plan or strategy, what is there to say about them? Why post that it’s Easter Monday, for example, if you’ve got nothing more to say about it?

The end result is that both the client and our team end up in a state of stasis. It’s difficult to offer exactly what the customer wants, if the customer doesn’t really know what they want. It’s difficult to make your client stand out from the crowd if any creativity or uniqueness we apply is curtailed.

It’s no problem if you believe no one but you is up to the job of promoting your business on social media; you do you, and be confident in your marketing. However, if you know you’re not best placed, for one reason or another, to be consistent and effective with your socials and you want results, then commit to outsourcing this work responsibly. And, if you’re fine with that step, and you choose Novus to be that third-party provider, be confident in the work we will do for you. Trust us to do it to the best of our ability. If you’re genuinely unhappy with something we present on your behalf, by all means, tell us, but don’t use your fears to beat us over the head with a stick, as it won’t get us anywhere.

If your worries stem from a lack of understanding, that’s not an issue; we’ll happily explain what we’re doing, how we do it, and what we’re in line to achieve. We want you to succeed, and we’re happy for you to remain involved with your marketing, but there’s a right way and a wrong way to do this.