I have been blessed with some fantastic social media clients over the years. I have represented some amazing causes and cities I have absolutely adored. And the people I worked with have been so smart and talented. This isn’t a brag. It’s just facts. I consider myself lucky to have called each and every one of them a social media client.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about what makes a great social media client for me, and naturally my thoughts started drifting to one person in particular. The funny thing was this relationship didn’t start well and I really had questions about whether I had been smart to take this person on. But over the years we worked together, it just kept getting better. When they finally left to take a new job, I cried. I had to hold myself back from saying, “Take me with you.” Of course they were moving to a job outside of marketing and had no use of my services. That might have been the worst part of the news for me.

So what made this particular client stand out? What did they do that my other clients didn’t? Let’s walk through it together.

They learned

When this person stepped into this role, it was still being developed and marketing was a small part of what they were doing. Marketing was only sort of in their skillset. Their strengths were really in other areas.

I’ll be honest that many of my clients don’t address their weaknesses. They lean into their strengths and hide what they don’t know. It works for some and completely disastrous for others.

This person took another route. On their free time, they read everything they could on marketing. They asked lots of questions, and if I gave any notes from my perspective, they really took them to heart.

By the time they left this position, they were honestly one of the best marketers I have ever worked with. Simply by recognizing their weakness and addressing it as best they could.

They communicated

If things are going awry with a client, it’s usually a lack of communication. This particular client prioritized it, and it truly made a difference.

Every week, as I was preparing content, they would give me a run down of everything I needed to know for the week. That would include community concerns, as well as products and events from the organization. They even told me about things the community might bring up, so I’d be prepared. In addition, we did a monthly call to go over similar information and plan long-term projects. We both always knew what was going on.

But they weren’t just communicating with me. They were in constant communication with the community, so they had just as much knowledge about their needs and wants as I did. Sometimes even more so since they talked to individual members consistently.

I’m not saying that anyone on the client-side should be constantly talking to individual community members, but in this case, it made content creation easier since they already knew what was going on in that community. I could just skip over that part of the conversation and get right to what needed to be done.

They set boundaries

Sometimes I would say, “Hey, social media would look loads better if we had X done,” and the response would be, “I would love to do that, but I have another priority that needs my concentration right now.”

You’re probably thinking, “What? You liked that your social media client told you no and didn’t take your advice?” Yes, in this case, I always appreciated it. It wasn’t about just outright ignoring what I had to say. It was about protecting their ability to be productive and prioritizing what needed to be done. I appreciate that kind of boundary.

And they didn’t just do this for themselves. They made it priority to set that kind of boundary for me as well. For example, they made sure anyone who worked with them would get me content in time so I wouldn’t have to work at the last minute or over a weekend. So any boundary they set up for their work they extended to me as well, which really helped me maintain a balance.

They contributed

Because they were so well versed on marketing and on their community, they regularly brainstormed with me and brought ideas that were worth exploring. This isn’t all that unusual for my clients, as I am just one person and I look for clients who want to be a part of the process.

Having someone who is fully versed in all of the aspects that go into content creation, however, is unusual. So nothing we did was fully off-track, because we both could help each other to course correct when our ideas go off a little to the left. That just improves the effectiveness of our marketing.

They had a great attitude

One of the most important parts of my job is that I maintain a positive attitude towards fans and what my social media client has to offer. From time to time, a client’s own attitude will get in the way of that unintentionally. Maybe they had a rough time getting a product together. Maybe a community member did something that wasn’t great. Those things did happen for this client, but they didn’t pass it onto me. That saved me time since I didn’t have to get myself back to neutral after a meeting with them.

Why is this so important? Fans can smell when something isn’t authentic. Giving authentic feelings towards content will only improve numbers, so I try my best to always do that.

They respected me

I could go on and on about the qualities this social media client had that really set them apart. The bottom line is that they respected me and I respected them. Having that absolute respect and trust really makes a difference when it comes to working with a client. The work is better and you have more fun. And in the end, that’s what we all want isn’t it?

What qualities make for a great working relationship for you?