Social Media's Dirty Little Secret

I have two Twitter accounts that I manage (personal one here). One Facebook page and more to come. One LinkedIn profile which (I'll admit it) needs more work. One nascent blog (yes, yes, it needs more work, you sense a growing trend). One growing Flickr profile (too ashamed to share until it becomes, how shall we say, less lame). An evolving Pandora station, personalized to my admittedly dubious musical tastes. Again, too lame to share right now. And those, I know, are just the basics.

It's fair to say I love social media. Love letting it all hang out. I share my thoughts, rants, interests and occasionally, on a good day, even a small nugget of professional knowledge. I work with clients to help them love it too and it's very satisfying. We all learn as we create, day by day and hour by hour. But boy, do the hours clock up. I'm not complaining. Like I said, I love delving in, connecting and sharing, and am genuinely enthralled and enthused by the way our industry is evolving. But here's the big question. Where do you find the time? Especially in an agency environment where everyone, staff and clients alike, find themselves at varying points on the adoption curve. Here's the thing:

Social media is a big time suck.

And it should be. You can't be effective at social media engagement unless you're taking the time to engage. And you can't fake it. At marketing conferences, you often hear how cost-effective a social media program was, delivering big results for little cost. No big marketing bucks, sure. But what about the people hours it took to deliver? That's the question feisty marketing execs are now asking.

I'm not sure anyone is really close to having the answer yet. Agency models need to adapt to survive. It's the age-old mantra and it's always true. You'll see different team structures, different cost structures and different client engagement models. We are already starting to deliver on that vision here at LEWIS, but make no mistake, everyone has a long way to go, and we should be prepared for more hours of social media toil to get there. If you need proof of the time it takes to be an active participant in the social web, check out Chris Brogan's "19 Presence Management Chores" post. Just looking at it exhausts me, but i know I need to step up my own participation levels in order to keep moving forward.

Like I said, it's exciting, and I can't wait to delve in even deeper. I just need to find a few more hours in the day first.

Comments

[Juan Feal]

Totally agree with you Louis! The online approach is totally different form the classic media, its more complex and so the strategies to implement.

The time you have to spend to have a good and consistent online profile is very hard and one mistake, one lie to jump higher in less time can ruin the campaign. If you think in targets, now we speak to consumers, prosumers and media....just that its a big change!

Regarding prosumers, here is an old video, but I like it a lot ;)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xj8ZadKgdC0