Should You Outsource Social Media Management?

The influence of social media and the internet over the past decade is obvious. It’s not a question of whether your organization uses social media, but rather how well your organization uses, manages, and maximizes social media. 

One of the questions many ask is: Should I just “outsource” social media management or do it ourselves? 

If you’re on the verge of making this decision, not too fast! Join me in this episode and I might be able to help you answer that question.

So, you're thinking about outsourcing your social media. Well, not so fast. I run a social media marketing agency and I want to encourage you not to outsource your social media. Now that said I think there are ways to find good partners to help you run your social media but outsourcing is just the wrong language to start with. So let me explain what I mean when it comes to outsourcing your social media.

So you want some help with social media. You don't feel like you can manage it all, keep up with it all on your own. That makes sense. Find a good partner to help you with your social media. But this is you on the internet and this isn't something you can just give the username and login to somebody else and just hope they represent you well on social media. You need to find a partner when it comes to outsourcing social media or at least finding help in the area of social media.

Let me just walk you through some steps to help you when it comes to outsourcing your social media or getting some help with your social media.

Define Your Brand

The first thing that you need to do, more than anything else, is to define your brand. Whether this is your personal brand, whether this is your organization:

What is it that you are about?

What is it that you do?

What is it that is unique about yourself?

How would you communicate to the world?

Why do you need to be on social media?

What message is it that is unique to you or unique to your organization that needs to get out there?

And so, who are you?

Start with your brand. Before you could even better represent yourself on social media and across different networks, you need to better understand who you are uniquely to then be able to communicate who you are, or at least have somebody else begin to communicate who you are and what you're about.

Define Your Goals

The second thing you need to do is to define measurable goals. What's the point of being on social media? Is it just so you can have more followers? Because that's not a good reason to be on social media. Now, is it more business? Is it more message awareness or brand awareness? Or what are the goals? Help define those goals. Define who you are and define what you want to accomplish. And before you can do those two things, you're not ready to find a partner. You definitely shouldn't just outsource it and hope, you know, because you feel like you need to check Facebook box or check the LinkedIn box that you're now good. You've got to start with who you are, what you're about, and what you want to accomplish.

Find a Partner

Now that you know what you want to accomplish, find a  partner. I think this language is very important. This thing I call all the clients that I work with, they're partners. I partner with them to amplify their message to get their word out and to help better accomplish their goals. And so they don't outsource their social media with me, they partner with me to help them accomplish their social media goals. And so, please don't outsource your social media. Please find a partner who's going to help you. Whether that's a contract employee, whether that's a full-time employee, whether that's a contracted agency. Find a partner that is aligned to your goals and best understands who you are to help you, not just create a content calendar, but maximize social media to accomplish those goals.

Guard Your Voice

The fourth thing you need to do is to guard your voice. If somebody else is managing social media, if they're responding to comments, if they're posting on these platforms, don't just hope that they're doing a good job and say, “Okay I’ve got more followers there so we're doing great.” Make sure that messaging is a good representation of you or your organization. Make sure the way they're responding to comments and messages is a good representation of you and how you would respond.

Monitor How You’re Effectively Represented

Now it doesn't mean you’re looking at every comment. It doesn't mean you're paying attention to every detail of every post but it does mean that you're paying attention. It does mean that you're guarding your brand and that you're guarding your voice. You're not just outsourcing it, checking a box when it comes to social media, but you're leaning on finding a good partner and monitoring how effectively they're representing you and your brand.

Provide Feedback

And after you monitor, and after you are paying attention to what they're doing, provide feedback. Because whatever they're doing, there are opportunities to get better. And maybe, one of the things that you do is you're doing it yourself, you're getting feedback from somebody else of “How can I get better?”. One thing I love in my consulting work is when people will ask me like you know,  “What about this or this?” or I see how this person does if they're always looking to get better. And so whatever you're doing today probably isn't going to work tomorrow. 

So get feedback or provide feedback to help that outsource partner or that contracted partner to better represent you on social media. And so whether that's giving feedback to a video or a response or a message, consistently provide feedback. That's not being critical, that's being helpful. As you begin to find other people to help you with social media, be helpful by providing consistent and clear feedback.

Advertising Budget

So two more things I want you to think about when it comes to outsourcing social media. I'll use that language even though I don't believe in that language when it comes to finding a partner within the realm of managing your social media. That is to budget for advertising, like Facebook Ads. If you're going to budget for somebody to contract or for an employee, put some extra money behind advertising. If you're going to put certain amount of time into social media, put some money into it as well. Social media done best requires invested budget when it comes to advertising, to make the most of that financial investment. You're going to see much greater ROI of social media with ad money behind it.

So don't just put it out there and hope for organic engagement. On most social media platforms, less than one percent of your followers actually see your post. So put some money behind it even if it's just a boosted post. Advertising will go a long way to maximize those efforts that you're doing on social media. 

Measure Results

And then the last thing I want to say is, measure results. One of the great things about social media is you can know how many people you've reached, you can know how many people clicked on a link, you can know how many people commented on a post. Look at analytics. Let the data tell you how effectively you're accomplishing your goals with social media. Don't just hope it's going well or say, “You know what, that post looked good .” It didn't matter how good it looked if nobody saw it and so pay attention to the data, let the data speak. Look at the analytics, look at the data and find a partner that's going to tell and show you the data for you to know how effectively it's working, not just show you the post and show you how effectively it looks. Looks can be deceiving. So pay attention to the data. The analytics are there, you need to be paying attention to them. 

I hope that helps. I hope if you are looking to get help in the world of social media for your social media, that you will find a partner. And this will help you and understand how to better prepare that partner, how to better support that partner, how to better measure the effectiveness of that partner. Please don't outsource it, find a partner. I wish you the best of luck in that process. If there are any questions that you have, leave those in the comments. I would love to answer those. Thanks so much for watching this episode of the vlog. We'll talk to you again in the next episode.

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