Clients wife absolutely ripped me to pieces after a year managing their Social media.
I recently ended a 1 year long social media client relationship peacefully and mutually. OR so I thought…
My client and I spoke over the course of the last few months and decided that his money was better spent elsewhere vs paying me to create content and post it.
A bit of background: this client was looking for digital marketing services to help with 2 things when they approached me last April.
1- brand awareness using short form, story driven video content 2- quality leads through similar video content and photo/graphic/story posts. I presented him with a package where I go out to his business every 6-8 weeks, film a bunch of content, take photos, etc. then I proceed to put out 1-2 posts per week with 2-3 quality videos each month, the idea was to show off the clients business and personality, great devices, etc. His max budget was $400/month and he also lived 1 hr away. He didn’t want to use paid ads as he had bad experiences with previous marketing teams.
This was basically my lowest monthly limit I would say yes to given the videography, editing, driving and overall management of his social media for 2 platforms.
Long story short. We created some great content together. Some videos did very well and some did ok. He even mentioned multiple times how he got a lot of positive reception from the content, we saw great engagement and all analytics pointed to good thing, the only issue was very little leads.
I knew the strategy needed work but with limited budget and limited posts per week, this client and I spoke on how he would be better off doing his own content daily and putting his money into paid ads, more focused higher end videos, etc.
I never once heard any feedback. Our monthly summary chat via text, audio and emails always gave room for feedback and I never heard a peep. Not anything.
So let’s fast forward to today. I noticed a lot of notifications coming from their social media channel the last week even though I’ve asked 1-2 times if they could remove me as an admin. (I couldn’t do it myself since they needed to add a new admin in order to delete me) anyways…I messaged his wife as he mentioned to me she would be taking over the content side. She absolutely ripped into me. I was polite and even complimented her on the new content she was creating. Come to find out, her and her husband hated everything I was doing and decided to not only NOT to tell me…but also keep paying me each month. This was especially frustrating, especially since it was a month to month contract. They could have stopped services or spoke with me at ANY point.
I take my work very personally and pride myself on trying to work for clients with limited budgets who have good intentions…and now I feel like shit. I am so tired of grown ass adults using me as a scapegoat for content that doesn’t bring waves of customers… when all they had to do was communicate.
How in the hell am I suppose to approach clients who don’t communicate? I even make it clear up front, to every client, how important constructive criticism and positive feedback go hand in hand in every successful collaboration.
Even including the realistic chat about how there is no guarantee when it comes to social media content. I’ve always been big on keeping things simple and creating story driven content, that solves the headache of the customer, while consistent and real content provides value, education and entertainment.
Especially with so much ai slop getting shoved down our throats. I see customers and businesses aching for human, raw, story, passion in the services and products they buy.
Do I need thicker skin? Am I in the wrong industry? Is social media just always a shit show? I would love to hear some advice and discussion on this topic. This is my 7th year doing this and I run a pretty successful small agency but I’m ready to never take a social media client ever again.
Maybe I’m just an asshole. Sorry for long winded post.
EDIT: thanks so much for all the comments and feedback. Sorry I can’t reply to everyone’s messages but it has been very helpful and enlightening. Thanks again everyone. Lots to learn and do better.