Social media is considered, by some, a necessary evil when it comes to running a business. If managing your social media isn’t within your wheelhouse or if you don’t have time you need to know how to successfully outsource social media management to a pro who will do it on your behalf.
Before you outsource it, you need to have a thorough understanding of the metrics you’re seeking, the metrics you’re measuring and what goals you want to achieve.
How To Successfully Outsource Social Media Management
- Don’t outsource for the sake of outsourcing. It may make you extremely happy to delegate your social media tasks, especially if it’s not something at which you excel, but you need to know what you want and need. Are you outsourcing all of it? Posting, commenting, interacting with followers? Are you looking for the social media manager to run any Facebook groups you’re managing? Will the social media manager act as him or herself or will he or she be interacting as you? What about images? Where will they get images? How will they share images?
- Don’t outsource to a friend of a friend’s son who has a large following. Ugh. We have seen this and it backfires. Just because someone is social savvy doesn’t mean they are business savvy and that they will promote your business in the way in which you want it promoted. Look for a seasoned pro who has a background and knowledge in managing social media. Look at the pages they manage and see if the mesh with your ideals of a social media partner.
- Keep your expectations reasonable. Just because you’re outsourcing social media management doesn’t necessarily mean your numbers will skyrocket. Talk with the social media manager and set expectations. If you couldn’t explode your social numbers, why are you anticipating hiring someone will do that for you?
Social media automation is your friend. Whether you choose Sproutsocial, Hootsuite, Tweetdeck or any of the other scheduling tools available, you may find social media automation will help you with the tasks until you hire someone.
Are you still doing your own social media management? Is it time to outsource? Ask us if you need help finding a pro.