Building a Strong Digital and In-Person Community Takes More than a Month

For a long time, I was proud of the fact that Schmooz was flexible enough to work month-to-month for our clients. It’s been in the past year or two that I’ve realized and clarified the challenges to both my team and to our clients when we are only willing to commit to month-to-month work.



Now, we insist on a minimum of 6-12 month engagements in order to get the best results for clients.



Sometimes it feels like the right books, people, and resources come into your life when you are ready for them, and I know that 2 years ago I wasn’t ready to let go of this type of flexibility, but now that I have learned the hard way, I can tell you that this statement in particular could not be more true:



“Month-to-month should be a warning sign to begin with because there is no way to get on-board with a brand, download on their business needs and marketing objectives and then execute within a month’s time.”



My team takes the time to understand our clients and their brand before creating content, to make sure that we’re on the same page before representing them online. Your greatest ROI for social media is one that leaves you feeling great about your content and about the value you’re giving your audience through posts, which will thereby positively impact business results. Once we begin posting, after the month long strategic planning phase, we’re learning more and more about our clients community and what direction seems to work best for their specific goals. Moreover, we schedule in regular re-strategizing sessions to make sure that the work we are doing counts and is adapting and adjusting appropriately.



Now I’m proud to say that our team understands what gets our clients the best results and it is our job to communicate that. Immediate results should not be promised without questioning the ethics behind the tactics. At the end of the day, meaningful results are difficult to sustain without smart, transparent and creative work.



Whether it’s on the client facing side, or on the in-house side...building a community that has honest and open conversations — a community that trusts... has the most potential to grow!





With thanks to Jeff Goldenberg for sharing this article, where I quoted from, about the challenges of working with Direct to Consumer (DTC) brands. I read this and put a lot of thought into it, and shared things with my team as a result, so thank you...and by the way, this doesn’t just apply to DTC brands, although it’s definitely most relevant for DTC brands!