When you think of the hardest jobs ever, you probably don’t think of social media marketing. Maybe you think that digging ditches would be harder. Maybe you will even think it through a bit more and imagine that working with terminal patients in a children’s cancer ward, or hunkering down in a fox hole and hearing enemy troops coming close would rank right up there as the hardest jobs. Oh yeah? Well, let me tell you about the job of a social media marketing consultant and strategist.
People are very selfish by nature. They don’t always think about the others around them. It is ingrained in each of us, from the very beginning, to preserve ourselves and to do what we can, to get the things we need. By default, we think of ourselves, and our own preservation, above that of others. After all, we are less equipped to help others if we cannot help ourselves first. Acting otherwise is a learned trait, and still must come with oneself in mind. Unchecked altruism would actually have devastating consequences.
This selfishness often has skepticism closely in tow. Worse yet, it is common that once people have just enough of those things they need, or fail at something enough times, a mechanism of apathy kicks in, and they stop caring. They stop seeking more for themselves, and they become complacent.
If you mix the naturally occurring selfishness, apathy, and complacence all together, you have a recipe for some really dreadful results. These results are so common that it often takes someone with specialized training and experience to clean up the mess. The best social media consultants have this training and experience.
Maybe you thought the job was to just tweet some stuff on Twitter, put your ads on Facebook, or set up your social media profiles the right way, but that is not how successful marketing is done. It is not even close.
The Job of Social Media Strategist Gets Messy
To perform the job successfully means we have to reach into the messy inside of human nature and human desires. The job includes studying how to bring others to a desired action based on an emotional response, and not just on an individual basis, but as a pack. A well targeted pack, at that.
Without defining who the customers are, understanding what they will respond to, and getting their emotions on board with your plan, it is like herding cats. You will never get what you want that way. Well, maybe what you want, if complacence has already set in, but certainly not what you could have. That brings up perhaps the worst challenge between a marketing consultant and their client, to instill the mindset that is required to want more. It means helping clients to remove their own barriers of apathy, skepticism, complacence, and the fears they create. It is especially frustrating when you know damn well they can have it, and you can deliver it, if they will just heed good advice.
I have studied a lot of psychology, and my studies have left me with little wonder why there are so many psychiatrists who are totally bonkers. Getting inside the mess that is the human mind can be very rewarding, but also very punishing. When you gain insights about why people work the way they do, it is easy to over-analyze everything from why people riot over a hockey game in Vancouver, to why apathy is easier than giving a damn. This is an arduous line of work for anybody!
Social Media Consultants Are Apathy Slayers
The job of successful social media marketing is a lot more than what people imagine it to be. It is not just the simple tasks that it may appear on the surface. It is a deeper look into apathy, and how to bring people to overcome it. This is an important part of how we deliver more happy customers to our client’s businesses.
In the job role of a social media marketing consultant, we must overcome apathy from our client’s customers, but that is the easy part. From the perspective of selling this as a service to clients, their apathy is enhanced by their skepticism, and solidified by fear. It becomes bolstered by their confusion of the difference between implementing a strategy versus wasteful tactics. That is where the line is drawn between the average social media marketing and the marketing that builds true success.
The point when you understand a market is when it can become a quest to “heal them all”, and to help them understand the little ways they are broken. It also must be done without them even realizing you are doing it. If they realize it, their skepticism may kick in and ruin even your best intentions.
Is Social Media Marketing Really So Hard?
So, how in the heck can this job of social media marketing consultant and strategist be worse than that nurse holding the dying child’s hand as she desperately wants the child to eat another bite of Jell-O? How can it be worse than the soldier with every nerve on end as his friend’s miserable body gives up the fight, right beside him? That must seem ridiculous, right?
It isn’t harder. I made that up. It does not even compare. I love my work, and I find it extremely rewarding. I must say, however, that helping people to feel something, and bringing them beyond their own apathy and skepticism is a challenge most people are thoroughly unprepared for. That is why I am hired to do the work I do.
Once you reach inside the messy mind of your market, you will find it much easier to ask them to donate to cancer research, provide support to hard working soldiers, or in this case, gain control of their own apathy and take the next step to improve their marketing efforts.
Most people who read my blog want better results for their business. It would not make much sense to be here otherwise. That is why I brought you here for this discussion. I can provide you with a lot of great free tools and thoughts to help grow your business. If you really believe in your company strongly enough, and you can put aside apathy, skepticism, and complacence, you will do much better. If you are having trouble with that, I welcome you to contact me to show what you can achieve with professional help. (Yes, even if you think you are my direct competitor.)
Until then, be sure to subscribe and keep picking up useful tips that can help you to help yourself.
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