I’m a consultant, so of course I have pet peeves when it comes to what other consultants do. That just goes without saying. We all do things differently, and what I see as a problem, a consultant may have experience with it working. So mostly I keep my mouth shut when it comes to what other consultants are doing.

Except in a few cases. And I don’t do this lightly. Because I have been on the consultant side of this where a client bullies you into bad social media practices, so I know this is not always the consultant’s fault. I just won’t bad mouth a consultant unless it’s really bad.

And what are those cases? Let’s talk about them.

Engagement circles

This goes by many names. But whatever they call them, it’s not good. Influencers and bloggers love this tactic. That’s generally how these consultants got the idea.

It can take a couple of forms. The first is that the consultant has joined a group or has employees. Everyone in this group comments and likes every post to try to make it look way more popular than it is. The other form is that all of the consultant’s clients comment and like their other client posts. Once again, making these posts look way more popular than they are.

Engagement is engagement though, right?

Wrong. This is basically fake engagement. Many times these engagement circles are full of people who would never donate to or buy anything from your organization. And your consultant’s other clients certainly won’t. They are not your audience and having them engage so heavily with your content makes an unhealthy social media program look healthy. You can’t recognize any problems and address them, so you can connect with your actual audience. And that will set you further and further behind the longer it goes on.

Working in a silo

I have had clients who have forced me to work in a silo so this is usually not just the consultant’s fault. But I have also seen consultants who almost demand to work in a silo.

A great social media consultant knows that their role is to find a middle ground between what the organization needs and what the fans want. Going too far on either side will take you away from your goals and make your social media ineffective. Well, if you’re only talking to one side, namely the fans, you are going to get dragged farther and farther to their end of the spectrum. Business objectives will eventually be ignored.

There needs to be a good balance. To do that, the consultant need to be fully integrated into your organization. If the consultant completely fights the idea and is not open to it in any way, then they’re probably not the right consultant.

Acts like they know more than you

This is something I see way too often. A consultant just enters into a relationship with a client. They immediately poo poo anything that has been done before. This usually ends up with the consultant not listening to a client. They are convinced the client knows nothing about marketing, especially social media marketing.

I have had clients who literally know nothing about marketing to the point that they tell me they know nothing. All of them have come up with something valuable that I can use. And all of the data from posts my client did before they hired me? A gold mine of ideas I can build off of. I can’t even imagine ignoring it, and yet I know many social media consultants who do this.

Just remember that if a consultant is not listening to you at the beginning with all of the work you have done, it will only get worse as the relationship develops. Even if you know nothing about social media, you can still be valuable to the program. Don’t work with someone who doesn’t believe that.

What are your social media consultant pet peeves?