May
25
2010
Social Media…is it the next Managed IT Service?
Author: Inside Stuart's head...The Internet and social media is definitely the Wild West. Actually it is worse than the wild west.
You know what it reminds me of?
If I reflect back around 2004/2005 when I first started to attend Harry Brelsford’s SMB Nation at the Microsoft Campus in Redmond, WA. There was a buzz back then in the early talks about Managed IT Services that continues on today. Should I be focused on managed services? How do I do it?
Now for my friends outside the IT industry, managed services was a way to charge a business a flat rate for providing IT tech services instead of billing by the hour or selling a small business a retainer type of service and drawing down on that retainer. Managed Services introduced new concepts and spun a whole new industry of companies selling products and services to those of us who provided the actually service. Some did well, while some lost focus and actually suffered and if they just kept their original business plan instead of buying into the hype…perhaps would have done well.
The introduction of Managed Services caused a tremendous amount of chaos in the technology industry that continues today. Almost five years later there are still discussions on, what tool do you use? How do you do this? How do you do that? These questions were the norm and my team at IT Matters, back in the day didn’t have everything nailed down tight (nor did we really care) with regards to managed services and we actually did a pretty poor job at it compared to others…but you know something, compared to others where it mattered the most, we were profitable and continued to inch closer to that $5M in sales number before my departure in late 2008.
Is Social Media and Internet Consulting going that way and should I take what I learned with IT Matters and apply it again?
I read a thread recently on the Social Media Today LinkedIn group that brought back the nightmares or memories of 2004/2005 SMB Nation events, depending on the way you look at things. There is an ongoing debate on how much to charge (seen this with managed services) organizations for your services. Discussions about tools to measure success (see them as well) and how to charge clients (been there, done that). Plus, there are new organizations out there spinning up to sell tools, products and coach social media consultants on how to do their jobs better.
What are we doing at Ulistic? What I have always done…focus on our clients and their needs first.
True, you can fix what you don’t measure. But don’t we have tools already to measure success online. I read an article by my friend Denise Deveau on Google Analytics and a flower shop in Toronto where this retail store in the GTA is using something as simple as a Google tool to measure the success of their business. What can I share with my colleagues in the social media business…focus on the needs of your clients first (they are your oxygen mask) and then put on the mask of the person beside you (your business). Use the tools out there but don’t get hung up on them and when you decide on one, stick with it. The other big thing about Managed IT services is how easy people changed tools and services and dropped 50K.
