This hesitancy and apologetic nature of the way I at times explain what I do stems back to the fact that I did, indeed, previously work in-house where, like everyone else, I was subject to the sales calls from the wide range of consultants and other vendors trying to get me to buy in their product or service. I know how it feels to be on the receiving end of those phone calls. I know that sinking feeling that you get when you realise the person you are speaking to in the seat next to you at the conference is someone who will at some point probably try to sell something to you (and some really don’t waste any time). It sucks, especially when you don’t have budget to spend or a need for the product or service. So, when I set up my business I was determined to find another way. I think I have, but I do still miss that ability to close a deal that probably is needed to make me really successful as a business owner. I find it difficult to do because it makes me uncomfortable.

I’m happy that the way in which I’ve managed to raise my own profile in the sector in which I work has mostly been by providing, hopefully, useful sessions at conferences (without a whiff of a sales pitch), by blogging lots on sites like this and elsewhere, by my voluntary work with the CIPR, and by creating HE Comms, a free social network for HE marketing and communications professionals to network and share ideas, best practice, ask questions etc. In short, I almost try to make up for the fact that I am a consultant who works for the sector and needs business from the sector in order to make ends meet, by giving a lot in return, and sometimes perhaps giving too much of my time for free. Granted, off the back of giving a lot of my time for free I do manage to raise my profile and ultimately win new business, so the returns are there (sometimes – not always), but I still feel apologetic about being a consultant. Why is that?

I like the wikipedia definition of “consultant” at the time of writing this. Or, at least I like this bit: ‘A consultant is usually an expert or a professional in a specific field and has a wide knowledge of the subject matter.’ I’m at ease with that description. I think that sums up who I am (not so much expert, but perhaps a deeper knowledge than those who work in-house have had the time to develop). And I wonder if my sense of shame (for want of a better word) about being a consultant is all in my head and simply a consequence of the sheer volume of people who whinge about ‘social media consultants’ and ‘PR consultants’.

So, regardless of what I choose to call myself or what others might call me, I’ve reflected a little on what it is I do that hopefully makes me add value to the lives of those I work with and makes me love this ‘job’ so much:

- I offer an external perspective on marketing and communications that isn’t bound to internal politics or jaded by years of being told you can’t do something “because…”. This is often why I am bought in to deliver high-level seminars and workshops. I am able to bring a fresh perspective.
- I provide additional resource and support on an ad-hoc basis without the client incurring another salary bill. As such, I provide support as- and when- needed. This isn’t always about specific expertise, just about ability and time. The work I did this year to help put the programme together for the University of Warwick alumni day, and the work I did last year on Imperial College’s undergraduate prospectus are perfect examples of that. I have the head space that some people within an organisation just don’t have, particularly when it comes to projects.
- My distance from an organisation, and yet my knowledge of the sector, mean that I am able to apply proper strategic thinking to projects, again without the distractions of the ‘day-job’. I am able to focus and see the bigger picture that sometimes it is difficult to see when you are working within an organisation. This was very much the case when I spent the last Christmas holidays writing an online PR strategy to support the University of Leicester with their Leicester Exchanges initiative, or when I was writing social media strategies for the University of Nottingham, Warwick Business School and Maastricht University in the past year.
- I help people come up with creative ideas by providing them with time-out and the tools and templates to think in a slightly different way about things. I hope this is what I achieve when I run workshops and seeing some of the fruits of that, as has recently been the case in chatting with people like David Girling from UEA (more on this in a later blog post), is really very satisfying.
- I spend a lot of my time focusing on key areas so I can bring specialist knowledge of my subject area, dedicating a lot of (unpaid) time to improving my knowledge and staying fresh in a way that it is difficult to do when you work in-house. In short, I act as a bit of a ‘filter’ or a sounding board for the sector for new developments and ideas and attempt to apply some critical thinking to that for everyone else in the sector.

People often ask me what exactly it is that I do. So, I think I can summarise this as follows:

- I come up with new ideas for marketing and communications (overarching strategies, projects and campaigns)
- I help other people come up with new ideas themselves (by providing workshops, training and coaching)
- I help organisations put those plans into action (by sometimes doing whatever needs doing: building social media spaces or sites, copywriting, managing events, overseeing a video production).

A lot of what I do could be done in-house, but people don’t always have the headspace to do it themselves. And that’s what I’d like to be seen as. Instead of an evil ‘consultant’ trying to sap the sector of its money, I’d like to be seen as a critical friend, a useful pair of hands and as an extension of the sector rather than as a ‘consultant’. But I’ll carry on using the word ‘consultant’ until I come up with something better (and before anyone else suggests it, guru is very very much not acceptable and should never be used by anybody in a job title or description). And whatever I call it, I love it. I just wish I was a little better at actually closing the deal on work instead of just having a good profile and reputation.

A question that I increasingly come up against now as I go out and run workshops for HEIs on social media strategy and implementation is how to monitor your online reputation. There are a number of free tools available to do this now, all with their limitations, and increasingly more and more subscription services that offer sophisticated solutions but again come with limitations. This morning I spotted a note on the CIM HE Marketing Group on LinkedIn informing members of a new service developed by ESISS that is specifically designed to monitor online reputation of HEIs. The service costs £3000 per year and they’re offering a two-week free trial.

The pricing is fairly competitive, I believe, with other paid-for services but at first glance of their description of the service I too would say it comes with its limitations. Firstly, their list of sites monitored sounds limited (Google Searches, Twitter, Facebook, Bebo, Blogosphere, News Sites, Wikipedia, TheStudentRoom, WhatUni, RateMyProfessor, IRC/IRQ, Graduate
Jobs Forum and eBay). It may be the case, however, that they just don’t list everything on their marketing materials but if this is the complete list, it is fairly restricted. I also worry that the weekly summary reports will result in customers just relying on those for their updates and not making the effort to check updates more regularly. A lot of damage can be done online in the short space of 7 days, so monitoring really needs to be done daily. Finally, they also claim that the service ‘categorises the reputational risk automatically on behalf of the organisation’. This sounds to be to an attempt at automatic sentiment analysis, but as this Fresh Networks review of paid-for social media monitoring tools revealed, automatic sentiment analysis is not particularly reliable, and a human-approach is very much required too. There could be a danger of relying on such services that you’ll miss an emerging crisis, or an excellent opportunity because an automatic system has categorised it incorrectly.

Now, of course, I’m saying all of this without actually trialling the tool so I’m very interested to hear from anyone who is trialling it. The plus points for the tool are that it monitors some networks that are very specific to HE (thestudentroom, for example) that other monitoring sites may miss, it enables translations of mentions of your brand in foreign languages, and it does allow for some benchmarking too. I’m very much looking forward to hearing of others experiences of using this tool or others on the market.