Managing Social Media Efforts: Internal or Outsource
Social media has become a hot topic in not marketing, customer service and other areas of business. The task of who is responsible for maintaining social media efforts is not always clear. Experts agree that you can’t determine who is responsible for social media until you have a strategy, but it’s also important to know what your human resources are while developing that strategy.
We recently researched several practitioners who interact with social media at different levels. Here’s what we found to be “best practices” for social media efforts concerning where it functions in the organization and who is responsible for it.
Best Practice #1: Consider Time Involved
Nicholas Cifuentes, an account supervisor at social media marketing firm
Overdrive Interactive, says it’s important to consider the time involved in a social media campaign.
“You can launch a Facebook page, a YouTube channel, a MySpace page, wipe your hands clean and say, ‘Okay, what's next?’” he says. “What is next? Creating the page…took very little time. Now, you have to worry about the interaction and maintenance.”
Cifuentes suggests that whoever takes the reins of social media efforts have experience in the field. He says it’s a good idea to outsource the work, if you can afford it.
“It might do well to go hire an agency that can handle social media marketing, and has process, procedures, maintenance and reporting already set up,” he says.
Best Practice #2: SMBs Should Look to Individuals & Invest Resources in Training
Individuals and small businesses may not have the budget to bring someone in for full-time social media efforts, but they also don’t have the time to do the tasks themselves. Dr. Debra Condren,
author of
Ambition is Not a Dirty Word: A Woman's Guide To Earning Her Worth and Achieving Her Dreams, says that she employees a virtual assistant or “VA” to handle her social media marketing efforts.
Outsourcing to an individual over a firm, may be more cost-efficient for an SMB or individual. For instance, Dr. Condren paid her VA to complete in-depth training with a social media expert.
Dr. Condren says her VA proactively handles social media tasks such as reacting to Google Alerts when they happen, posting columns to her blogs and social media accounts as they hit the Web and maintaining Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts.
“She [the VA] has pretty much single-handedly built my Twitter followers to about 1,450 people and also has built my Facebook "friends" to about 700 at last count,” Dr. Condren says. “I definitely would not be able to train someone myself. Without having made this wise outsourcing move, I simply would not be able to keep up with it all -- and do my client consulting and speaking and writing.”
Best Practice #3: Consider Your Strategy
“By developing this strategy, you ensure that the people who are ultimately responsible for this effort know what you are trying to achieve and can measure the results of their efforts accordingly,” Peterson says.
Best Practice #4: Align SM Goals with Roles
Peterson says that the goal of the social media efforts should decide the responsible party.
“For example, if you’re a tech company that’s looking to unroll a new feature that allows customers to ask for tech support via social mediums, you’ll want your tech support staff to man that initiative,” she says.”
Best Practice #5: Give Your SM Efforts a Recognizable Face
She also says that large organizations can benefit from making a recognizable figure the face of your social media realm. She does issue a word of caution.
“It’s important that the candidate that is chosen to represent the face of the organization is a seasoned communicator; preferably already familiar with social media sites on a personal level.”
Best Practice #6: Weigh All the Pros & Cons Before Outsourcing
Peterson advises against outsourcing because those who participate in social media streams like the transparency of the experience. If you outsource your social media efforts, you risk losing credibility with your audience.
Why do you risk losing credibility? Your audience expects direct communication to them via social media. It’s hard for an outsourcer to do this.