Looking for a top social media consultant to propel your business into the world of online marketing? If so, there are 3 important things to consider; characteristics which your social media consultant must posses or you will be doomed for failure.

Nowadays, everyone and their mama is claiming to be a social media expert, but your business and your livelihood are nothing to gamble on. Be sure to check yo’ self before you wreck yo’ self.

Branding Experience

Having in-depth knowledge of branding (corporate identity) is an important aspect of social media marketing for large, multinational corporations as well as mom-and-pop shops. Branding is the face of a business and must be presented in the most accurate light. You may be the best social media guru on the planet, but failing to effectively convey a brand’s image/goals in a social campaign is like falling off the swing as a little kid. It sucks.

SEO Know How

The most unique, coolest social media campaign can fail if it’s lost on the web. Hiring a social media consultant with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) experience, someone who can perform Social Media Optimization, is critical to success. The goal is to gain maximum exposure for social media marketing campaigns via organic, natural, free mediums and SEO provides for such. Increased organic exposure + decreased marketing expenditures = increased profits. Jah feels?

Proof in the Pudding

When searching for a top social media marketing consultant, be sure that proof does in fact reside in the pudding. Ask for statistics, samples of work, articles they have written, how many Retweets their content receives on Twitter, and anything else that may pertain to the services you are inquiring about. If someone calls my company and is interested in social media marketing, we gladly provide samples of our work and explain how we can achieve the same results for their business. A “social media consultant” with no proof would scare me and cause me to run in the opposite direction. Remember that.

I hope by listing the above characteristics you will be able to find a social media consultant that understands your business and has the ability to achieve your goals.