This question is a great one and was prompted by a reader enquiry (thanks Kate).  Many agencies seeking to integrate social channels into their campaigns want to know whether they can charge their clients for the work.

Our view is that this should be a chargeable service that you can provide.

First check a couple of things

1. Does the client have a PR agency?  (they may be better suited to doing the work)
2. Is there anyone on the client side team who is already an active social media user? (Could you train them up)

And so here are a few things to think about when considering your proposal and pricing

1. Social media coverage is often time intensive and so a per hour fee may make it look expensive, consider a retainer or success fee combined with per hour billing
2. Learn how to use as many ‘time saving’ applications as possible (Google alerts, Tweetdeck, TweetLater) so you can cover several client social media brand accounts simultaneously
3. Offer a strict time-limited service so staff don’t over-do the time spent on social media.  Set up alarms so they know when to stop work.
4. Transfer your skills into the client organisation as ‘training’ – you can charge more for this
5. Ensure you set the strategy for social media execution and specify this work separately and charge appropriately

Any other advice you can offer?

Other resources

Five things to ask a social media agency before working with them (FreshNetworks)

Social Media Group has a template RFP for brands looking for a social media service partner (Social Media Group)

Related articles

• Social Media RFP: Ask the Right Questions, Find the Right Partner (socialmediatoday.com)
• How PR Pros Are Using Social Media for Real Results [Mashable] (joshdilworth.com)
• Twitter for Business (slideshare.net)

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Image by luc legay via Flickr

When you have taken the time and effort to create original content,I have always believed in using it two or three times in different ways to extract maximum value.

And so a press release becomes an article which is reproduced as a flyer and is mailed to clients or included in the corporate brochure as an insert… you get the picture.

It's much easier than that online these days.  Five things to do in order to "amplify" your work i.e. get it used two or three times in different places.

1. Set up Twitter Feed to automatically cross post from your blog to your twitter account.
2. Use Tweetdeck's Facebook integration to automatically cross-post to Facebook from your Twitter stream
3. Set up FriendFeed to include all your social media feeds and get that feeding Facebook
4. Find Ning groups, eCademy or Linked In groups that align with your specialist area and cross-post onto them from your blog
5. If you are an agency get approved to stream your blog (or just your best work) onto Marcom Professiona l

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There are loads of great events that you don't have the time to attend.  Here's a list of ways to find out what went on without going yourself.

1. Find out what hashtag is being used and follow it. 
2. Set up a browser window to get all the tagged tweets in one place using Twitterfall
3. Set up a twitter group of attendees and follow them.  Tweetdeck allows you to form groups – I make a temporary one then delete it after the event.
4. Search blog posts for content that hasn't been on Twitter.  This is worth doing each evening / morning.  Try Google's blogsearc h or the more well-known Technorati
5. Mike Damphousse has written a great summary called "My favourite top 20 tweets" from the Sales 2.0 conference.  Neat idea but worth favouriting each Tweet as it happens for ease of aggregation later.

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A case study showing how to find new prospects for your service using social media.

Here's a nice example of Twitter working for me.

I wrote a blog post about creative agencies not using marketing tools for their own marketing

I put it up on Twitter

It was picked up by people who read my Twitter stream www.twitter.com/rebeccacaroe

They valued it enough to "amplify" its message by "re-tweeting" it to their followers.  I.e. they repeated my message and republished the link to the blog. 

Result: their followers read my stuff, if they like it they'll follow me increasing my audience.

Moral: write interesting stuff and an audience who is interested in your area of specialism will eventually get to know about you.  I expect more people will follow me as a restul. 

  The image is a screenshot from TweetDeck showing the people who repeated my message [RT is shorthand for re-tweet]. Tweetdeck is the tool I use to read my Twitter feeds – it helps me filter into groups, replies to my tweets, sort those that reference my twitter ID and shortens URLs.  Handy.

Thanks to all of you!

Aside…. one of the RTs came from [twHIVE] Where it says

"twHIVEs are twitter accounts created to collect posts with a special content. This one is for webmaniacs."

Interesting… must investigate further.  Seems its Frank Tentler playing around….

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