Outsourcing your social media management? – 8 useful tips.

Your social media management… In house  v’s Outsourced?

Some useful tips to help you make a successful decision..

I launched Jane’s Social Media as a social media manager,  but I soon came to realise that there are a whole heap of problems with this.  Only big organisations can really afford a full time social media manager to take on the whole of the their strategy.

I saw that the way forward was to train business or organisations  to do it themselves,  thus having a truly  authentic voice.

However lots of organisations don’t feel that they have the time or skills and thus want to outsource.  I am all for outsourcing, and still do offer a done for you service with very clear conditions.

I hear a lot of complaints regarding   Done for you  Services currently offered, and I feel  sure that so much of that is down to a lack of clarity on both sides.

So I’ve produced the following as useful guidance both for organisations looking at outsourcing and people wanting to offer this service.

1. Strategy –   your SM manager should be working with you on your strategy as first step addressing the Who, What, Why,When, Where and Hows?  If this is not dealt with first then things are pretty doomed from the start. How do you know if you are succeeding if you don’t know what you are aiming for?
2.  Level of service –  Be clear what is being provided.  Is you SM manager going to post content only, or create content?  It is my experience that businesses that are too busy to do it in house are also often too busy to provide content to post.  This will lead to dissatisfaction on both sides and a poor service.
3. Knowing your business. Your SM manager, whether outsourced, or in house, must have a good understanding of your day to day business if they are going to be your voice. There needs to be a paid for induction into the business. A one hour planning meeting is really not going to be adequate.
4. Who is speaking?  People like to know who they are talking to. Do you say tweets by Jane,  or is your Social Media manager  pretending to be you?
5. Joint admin’. The first thing I do when I set up an account for someone else is ensure that they can access it. It is theirs and so they have should be able to go in and post information, or at the very least keep a regular eye on it.  If your social media manager will not give you the log in and password – and I do hear that that happens,-  there is something not right there . This account belongs to the business not the SM manager.  Just make sure you are not duplicating.
6.  Agree a protocol, such as what happens with any reputation issues, who replies to LinkedIn messages etc..
7. Monthly  meetings  face to face , or if needs be, skype, where your SM manager will take you through statistics, progress  and any issues that need resolving.  Plus you can discuss the following month’s strategy .
8. Agree an initial contract, understanding that it  takes 3 to 12 months to get established. But  don’t be afraid to end that contract if either side is consistently failing to  work as agreed.