Social media outsourcing
You are probably already aware of the importance of ensuring proper branding on social media by using a hands-on approach. However if your business is not in the position to be able to commit the time required to fully manage your social media campaigns, outsourcing is an option that has worked well for many businesses.
With so many options out there, the difficulty then becomes, how to choose the right person or social media agency to help you so that you are not hurting your brand, but are ensuring its success? We’ll discuss how your business can benefit from social media outsourcing, and how to find the right fit for you.
Hiring a Social Media Expert
When you decide to outsource your social media management, the most important thing to keep in mind is that person or agency will be your voice. What they say on social networks can have a drastic impact on your brand’s success, and can make or break interest in your business. This is why hiring a consultant that you can trust is key.
Doing a bit of research before you partner up with an outside source is important. Here are some things to check:
- Do a Google search for the name of the consultant or company to see if they have any customer complaints.
- Look for their business in Google Places via Google Maps, and search for either their name or their website to get local reviews.
- Check out their website to see if they have testimonials.
- Look them up on LinkedIn and read the reviews for the company, owner, and employees. You can also check them out on social media to find reviews. Facebook is a great option for this.
Another option is to take a look at other businesses in your industry and see who they are using. You can reach out via LinkedIn to see if anyone can refer you to someone.
Setup and Strategy Only
If you aren’t quite ready to have someone else speak for you on social media, you can also have someone outside your business brought in to do the initial setup for your social media. This would include creating profiles, configuring them, setting up management tools, and designing custom background designs. Doing all of this yourself can take some time and can be a major hurdle for some businesses.
After getting your accounts set up, you’ll want to spend some time with your consultant going over the basics of maintaining your accounts. This includes:
- Checking your Facebook for customer posts and replies, how to use the data in insights, how to add content to your page, as well as additional marketing strategies you may want to use.
- Ways to monitor industry discussions and mentions of your brand on Twitter, as well as how to check your messages, post updates, and how to properly get your message across with the character limit, as well as other strategies to use on Twitter.
- How to build brand awareness on Google+ by interacting with others in your industry and other ways to utilize the platform.
- How to upload videos, create playlists, and comment on other videos on YouTube.
After you feel comfortable with the basics, talk to your consultant about social media strategies such as how often to post, types of posts, and how to best utilize your social media accounts in your marketing.
Working Side-by-Side With Your Consultant
If you decide that you want your social media consultant to do everything for you, including being the voice for your brand on social media platforms, you want to maintain a close working relationship with them. While monthly or bi-weekly check-ins are important, you will also want to have access to them anytime you have a question. Making sure they understand this will be key in building a good working relationship with your consultant.
This also works the other way around. There will be times when they will need to contact you to deal with specific issues that may arise in order to work with you to solve them. This includes dealing with customer complaints. Often when these specific issues arise, it’s best for you to be able to handle the issue yourself, because it will help you build a relationship with your customers. If there are certain legal regulations that prohibit saying certain things, it is imperative that your consultant knows about this before allowing them to respond to comments or post on your behalf.
Keep an Eye on Your Social Media Profiles
As a business owner with a lot on their plate, if your ultimate goal is to be completely hands-off when it comes to your social media, you should always check your profiles to monitor work done by your consultant. Make sure your posts are relevant and timely. You want to make sure they are representing you and your business properly.
Everyone makes mistakes. But sometimes those mistakes can be costly. Make sure they aren’t posting or captioning anything with inflammatory remarks, or ones that could turn off potential or even existing customers.
There have been several brands that have made the mistake of posting something they thought was good-natured, only to be slammed on social media afterward. As a small or medium-sized business, you want to steer clear of this as much as possible.
Hopefully, we have helped you to understand how to choose if outsourcing your social media is right for you, and how to form a relationship with a social media consultant to assist the growth of your business. If you would like to further discuss how to get the most out of your social media, please contact us!