A few months ago I worked on an advertising project that came up because a client was promised some free production and media. This offer was too good to pass up so they asked the agency to add some value and help make the most out of the opportunity.

I bet you know where I’m going with this. What was promised to be “free” ended up costing far more than free. I could provide a long list of costs but that would just be boring. Let’s just say, the man hours it took to turn something free into something that represented the brand well was nothing close to free.

Free social media is exactly the same way. There are all kinds of not so obvious costs that need to be considered before starting an effort.

Monitoring: Either you have to pay for a service or tool. Or you need to pay someone to spend time with the freebies and Excel.

Strategy: You need to know what and where you will be engaging.

Moderating and community management: You will need someone experienced to engage and respond to customers.

Tools: Sometimes you need to purchase technology to make the best use of your social media.

Plan for success: What happens if things go really well? You need a plan and financial resources manage success.

Our client was smart, they recognized the need to spend on free media to make the most of it. And once you spend money on something you tend to put more value on executing it correctly. And then you’ll have a better chance of it paying off.

Posted on: October 2, 2009, by : Jimmy Gilmore