Having an online presence is much more than just an optional extra in today’s marketing game. More than half of all business owners make use of social media marketing as a means to grow and maintain consumer-brand relationships.

This huge task is usually best left to a team or person who best understands the fairly young social media infrastructure. This can either be your business’ greatest asset or a nasty obstacle on the road to success. We’ve examined a few pros and cons when it comes to outsourcing social media.

Pros

Cost-effective

With the use of online ad services on ads such as Facebook, it is now a whole lot easier to effectively streamline your marketing capital. Social media managers have a vast understanding of how these ad services work, so outsourcing your social media team could save your business some much-needed funds.

Agencies can monitor and track your social media engagement with consumers and can use this information to find your most accessible, relatable customers. Having parts of your campaign automated also saves the cost of having to go out and find potential users off-line, which serves as a monumental saving on marketing resources.

Time saver

As a small business owner, it’s nearly impossible for you to handle every aspect of your business on a day to day basis. Outsourcing social media will not only save you time, but it‌ ‌will also give you more than you had before.

By having your social posts curated for you, and then scheduled for release, you gain back precious hours lost meticulously handling an otherwise small task. You can also have your customer engagement on a 24/7 basis by employing agents in differing time zones to yours.

Imagine your business having real-time engagement with your customer base in say – New Zealand – while you’re actually sound asleep in Cape Town. This will leave you time to focus on other core aspects of your business, and maybe more importantly – leave you time to rest and enjoy the spoils of your labour.

Expertise

When you outsource to the right team or agent, you’ll be putting your trust in the hands of someone who handles just that one factor of your business.

It’s possible to maintain up to degree level qualifications in social media management, which should help you validate its importance within the marketing and business spheres.

Having an online presence means a lot more than just updating a status on your business’s Facebook page, or throwing up a simple hashtag. If you – as a small business owner – do not understand this, it’s probably more necessary that you employ someone that does to handle your business’ social media needs.

Perspective

When outsourcing your social media services, you also outsource knowledge and ideas from outside your business. Because agents/agencies work with various clientele, they can pick up marketing tips and tricks from outside of your industry and apply it to your digital marketing schemes.

They can also help to gain a perspective from someone who understands consumer needs better than you do while correlating that information with your business aspirations. Having access to this constantly growing database of marketing information can truly help boost a business’ social media profile.

Stats

Probably one of the most crucial factors when it comes to social media marketing is the use of online reports. Understanding where your marketing capital is being spent – as well as it’s potential reach – is vital to any campaign’s success rate.

Ad management services such as Facebook Pixel track online user engagement to figure who is interacting with your product or service’s digital marketing strategy.

It uses tracking data to effectively find which users that interact with your product are from similar areas, or share similar interests, as opposed to only tracking users that open your business page. Hiring someone who knows how to accurately utilise these tools can boost your marketing efforts.

Cons

Lack of direct engagement.

As a business owner you’ll want to have as close a relationship with your consumers as possible. When you hire social media services outside the business, the distance of this valuable relationship becomes considerably further.

Social media managers can easily maintain your brand’s overall aesthetic and handle things like basic customer queries. But the only one that can translate the business’ core beliefs is you. You must build a strong relationship with your social media services based on fluid communication and trust.

Cost defective

As with any business, what you put in is what you get out. This applies to the world of social media marketing too. Hiring out of house can mean hiring someone out of touch with the brand, or someone who is not always accessible.

This could lead to communication or campaign delays, slower task turnaround time and ultimately, a lower ROI. Planning is essential when it comes to social media outsourcing for small business. You’ll want to ensure that your social media team is always the touch of a button away.

You’ll also want to make sure that your business can receive metrics and analytics of just how and where your marketing capital is being spent, to ensure that your business is not wasting money.

Loss of Authenticity

The first fear that small business owners encounter is a natural one. Social media outsourcing means handing over the voice of your company and putting it in someone else’s mouth.

The person/s you employ may not necessarily understand the core beliefs or intentions of your brand. This could mean that everything you want to say to your customers, becomes lost in translation.

Perhaps you have particulars about a product that you want to emphasise to consumers or a special offer campaign that could drive some urgent sales. If these are not given the right attention to detail, your consumer base may not understand the true dynamics of your brand’s profile, which could really hinder your business’ ability to stand out amongst its competitors.

There are several factors to consider when it comes to your online presence. It’s important to lay a solid foundation when it comes to outsourcing social media management for your business. Find out more about how we at PrimePixels can help you navigate these decisions, here.