Not everyone can afford to/manage to do digital themselves – hence they generally opt for a ‘affordable’ agency. Which generally, is cheaper than hiring a Social Media Executive and a Designer.
When you pay someone, you generally keep a good progress-check. How do you do it with digital agencies? Post Schedules/Calendars.
I think it’s NOT a good approach for a few reasons. I’ll try to back myself up with a few examples, no offense intended to companies/projects that I share the examples about.
1. Digital is campaigns – NOT Posts.
Subway, Pizza Hut and Burger King are some of the brands which can pull-off social media campaigns and posts really well rather easily. To go Viral – they’ll have to be creative. But to simply work? They can use a simple content, deals and food-porn. Cause if you see a intimidating Pizza, you’ll think about it. You are likely to try it out if you’re hungry enough/intimidated enough. Food-porn actually works.
However, for brands and services much more complex than fast-food, it takes more a one post to get users to try it out. And with each post, you have to be very thoughtful to what kind of brand perception/image you’re portraying. Specially in the early days.
The image on your right is from a courier company in Pakistan. While a courier could probably talk about reliability & speed – this quotation about trust, peace and ‘building’ is not relevant. So that’s some marketing budget and genuine opportunity to change user’s perception flushed down the toilet.
BONUS: It’s generally better to use ‘local’ heroes. Cause marketing is very context and culture based. So ask your digital company to use something that locals can relate to.
2. Social Media is an iterative process.
I remember working with an academic network for their digital marketing. We had to continuously iterate not only design of posts, but the audience too for a couple of months. And it paid off well, our ROI was much better and ads budget well spent.
But that all happened because we had the opportunity and the flexible mindset. BUT when make your posts calendar for next two months, you lock down the [I’m taking feedback and iterating] doorway. And it slowly grows on you, which makes your brand grow even more slower.
If your agency has a plan for next two months, iterating ain’t part of it.
3. The ‘opportunities’ don’t have a schedule.
You’re much likely to get more attention and go viral on days and events that are somehow relate to your brand, only if you can pull it off well.
There’s a ‘scheduled’ kind of opportunity. If you’re a gifts company, Christmas is one of the best. However, Christmas is scheduled – everyone knows about it. So everyone will be doing exactly what you’re planning to do. It’s hard to stand out (even if you’re creative) when there’s too much noise.
There’s another kind of opportunity. The unscheduled kind with a very small window (generally hours if not minutes) and you need to get-in before it closes. Oreo pulled off one during lights out in Super Bowl.
But these kind of opportunities require your agency to think actively and keep their doors open – which generally does not happen when you have a schedule.
If you’re looking for a much local example, @McDonald’s Pakistan pulled off a really good post during Ashura in Pakistan. (For security signals: Cellular signals went for two days).
4. Deadlines make you do stuff you shouldn’t
Yup, most of the time when agencies have a deadline (cause they have a schedule, duh!) and cannot come up with something creative – they’d post anything that looks like a post.
I think some of my friends at TCS might not like it, sincere apologies. I know that there are many example worse than this, but this is something that I had in mind (considering TCS is the most used courier service in Pakistan).
‘Gear up for some Monday’. For a guy who doesn’t know about TCS, how does this post feel like? If you ask me, I’d think TCS is a Coffee Brand – cause ‘they move you!’ and the only element in this post is a coffee. ‘Gear up for some Monday’ with coffee doesn’t make me think it’s coming from a courier company.
The post is unfinished in many ways, including the fact if you look closely at the cup – it’s a copyrighted Shutterstock image with watermark over it.
This one below is a bonus: ‘Small or large, we deliver everywhere’ might be the real reason why aliens don’t come see us.
I mean I’ve never said this before, but I think it’s coming from the same writer who wrote this headline for Times of India.
That’s it, my list of reasons why you shouldn’t ask your agency for post calendars. You didn’t ask for it? They still sent you a calendar? Well, surprise, that’s how they work nowadays. Come work with us if you want something original and creative. Heads up, we’re expensive.
If you have any feedback or comments regarding the article, feel free to post them below. This is just a tentative list, I’d love to improve it over time.
Have a great day! 🙂
