Freelancing Archives — Kim Townend Studio

I’ve worked in social media since 2006 and have been a social/digital strategist for the majority of my career.

Being a social strategist is very similar to being most other kinds of strategist, besides the requirement to stay across the updates, algorithms and ever-changing requirements of multiple social networks.

”You still have the same work to do in understanding client goals and the market’s general state and identifying the insights you can leverage to give you the best chance of success. Or, as Mark Pollard puts it,“Strategy is an informed opinion on how to win.”You still have the same work to do in understanding client goals and the market’s general state and identifying the insights you can leverage to give you the best chance of success. Or, as Mark Pollard puts it, “Strategy is an informed opinion on how to win.”

So, how am I different, and why should you care?

I’ve used social listening in some form for almost the entire span of my career. I believe that the better we understand our audience, the better the strategy we can create, the better the content/product/insights we can produce, ultimately leading to the best results we can achieve.

Usually, social listening pros and social strategists are two different professions. One will brief the other on the sort of insights that they’re looking for; the social listening person will generate the insights based on what they think the strategist wants and relay them back to the strategist, who will use them to create their strategy. This increases the chance of miscommunication and often means the most valuable insights stay hidden.

On top of this, social listening is usually only available to people who can afford advertising or creative agencies, as alongside the cost of the software and data, you’re also looking at the cost of two people’s time.

With me, you’re getting the whole department in one person.

As an experienced strategist, I’ll shape the search to deliver precisely what we need and pivot if the search shows us a different direction. But the real magic happens in that I can take the insights I’ve generated and create a strategy that takes all of them and the nuances that don’t make it into the deck into account. There’s no disconnect or miscommunication between the insights and strategy teams when they are the same person!

So you, the end client, are getting an incredibly well-researched piece of work that gives you tangible goals and KPIs to work to, that take into account not only all the things we’ve learned about our category and audience through social listening but also how many posts we need to put out, in what format, and how TikTok differs from Instagram, and if we need to be on LinkedIn as well.

In many situations, I’ll even be able to recommend a social media manager to take care of the day-to-day posting for you. I can work with you on an ongoing basis to ensure that you’re taking advantage of any platform shifts and updates, review our KPIs, and evolve our strategy if our learnings show that this is required.

So, if you want agency-quality work without the agency price tag, message me and let’s talk.

Late last year, I was approached by a local business, recently opened in the area, to help them build their social presence and hopefully their customer base.

I was really keen to get involved as I feel it’s important to support the area I live in, and it’s always great to see new ventures opening up near to me.

Long story short, I met with them and outlined a plan I also agreed to both their payment terms and a reduced rate (which were different than my own, but I was trying to be supportive of their endeavour in any way that I could.)

I began work for them by creating a strategy, agreeing a direction and ways of working and right from the get-go they weren’t delivering on what we’d agreed. (Not giving me the content promised/rescheduling meetings at the last minute) but I just put this down to the upcoming holidays/general client inefficiency.

A couple of weeks before Christmas (I’d been working for them for the better part of a month now) I invoiced for the first half of the agreed amount. They had asked me to do this in our initial meeting – this was on their timescale. Invoice terms had been set at 7 days.

7 days came and went, and I was assured that the payment would be made soon. I didn’t worry too much about this as it was the holidays, I was just mildly annoyed until the client stopped responding to my emails or texts.

In early January I eventually got the details of their financial controller who emailed me back a few days later saying that unfortunately he didn’t have a payment date as of yet. No explanation as to why or when he might. Literally a one-liner.

This was what really annoyed me as it showed such a massive lack of respect. I continued to chase for payment, but to no avail.

In frustration (and not naming any names) I tweeted about overdue invoices, and a company called Safe Collections responded to me.

Now, I’ve never used a debt collection service because I haven’t had to. I’ve had overdue invoices before, sure, but they’ve always kept me posted as to what was going on and when I could expect payment.

I was at the end of my tether with this client so I contacted Safe Collections and they were super helpful right from the start. They take on the job of dealing with the client for you (very persistently) until they settle the account. I just had to give them the client details and fwd them any relevant correspondence about payment.

It took the guys at Safe Collections just over 3 weeks to get my invoice paid, they updated me at every step and just took the hassle out of dealing with my worst ever client. It was worth every single penny of the teeny amount they charged for their services.

No-one asked me to write this post, but I thought it might be helpful for other freelancers/ small business owners to know that there are people who can help resolve situations like this.

I find it irksome that given the way that business works, if you complain publicly about not being paid or treated very well, it’s you who is seen as unprofessional, while the client continues as usual and you’re put in a situation that makes you feel (somewhat) helpless.

If you’re ever unlucky enough to experience this, just be aware there are things you can do while still retaining your professional integrity.