Is the delivery of social media really affected by location?

I have been reading lots of posts about the time it takes to manage social media, ProBlogger recently asked the question: "How long does it take for you to write a blog post?" and after 294 comments the average seemed to be around an hour.

I have also been reading interesting posts from Richard Millington and Sally Whittle detailing how many types of communisation they receive a day. Richard got to 89 different types and Sally received more than 169 emails in 24 hours - that's quite a lot of emails to have to reply to.

Another communications blogger that I read regularly Heather Yaxley comments: "Social media sites need freshness - not just for the sake of it, but because any business needs to remain top of mind and have something to say if it wants to be a credible online player."

This got me thinking, with all the tools we have these days and the time it is taking to update them all. Is location really important when delivering a social media campaign for a client? Would it matter if you were based in the UK and you hired an agency in the US to deliver a global campaign, if they were good and understood the markets?

In the UK we seem to have a strange culture where we are actually bothered where someone is based. In the US it's very different but if we receive so many emails, twitter messages, news articles and blog posts - does it really matter where we are reading or commenting on them? I don't think so!

Comments

[Heather Yaxley]

I don't think geography is so important in respect of those using social media, but of course, in building client relationships, personal contact still seems vital, even if only occassionally.

Seeing and hearing people adds something beyond reading words (and technology can help deliver that), but really there's nothing quite like time spent in the real world with people to build a good connection.

[Chris Norton]

Heather, thanks for your comments I agree that personal face to face communication is the best for building client relationships nothing can substitute a quick beer or coffee with a client. However, if a consultancy holds video conference calls fortnightly and meets the client around twice a year - I don't think it would cause any problems at all. It just means the best companies will end up getting the good work.

[Simon Wakeman]

Hi Chris,

I'm not sure, even in the UK, that geography is the key thing here.

The affinity that builds relationships probably depends more on shared cultural values, experiences or outlooks.

And I completely agree with Heather's comment on personal contact - that's just more of a challenge now than it was previously when professional relationships began offline but were continued online - now the opposite is often the case.

cheers,
sw