Reconsidering Outsourcing Your Social Media to a Third-Party?

Perhaps you have seen the other blog titled Should You Outsource Your Social Media to A Third Party? – well, consider this the sister to that posting. This update to the prior includes bits of what we have already mentioned in addition to the few benefits there are should you choose to outsource your social media. Everything you do has some pros and cons, however, when exercised under the correct understanding you can do the right thing for your company.

There is no doubt about how powerful of a tool social media can be for your organization. Your desire to have such a powerful tool in your arsenal is there, sure, but your company may find itself lacking the manpower or the budget to make such a dream a reality. There could be a variety of stressors that make it seem as though attaining the strength of social media can only be done if you outsource the division to an external agency. If you have found your way to this page then you have wondered if you should outsource your social media platform to a third party agency.

Before you make a decision, understand that there are a plethora of potential outcomes for the choices you make – think critically, and you will find yourself on the best path. The first step you must take on such a path begins with considering what social media means as a tool to your organization. Are you looking to forge relationships with consumers or are your intentions centered on monitoring online relationships? The latter seems to be predicated on the prior.

Social media, in the most simplistic explanation, allows for a two-way dialogue between an organization and various audiences. This dialogue is not limited to customer service and can be utilized for marketing, advertising, evaluation, and measurement purposes. The public, your audiences, then receive what you have encoded into your products, encode their own meaning into that product or message, and then diffuse that message under a higher velocity via various social media channels. You can see why it is important to build a relationship with your social media tools – something that is far more difficult to accomplish if you outsource your social media. Let’s say, however, that building relationships is not your primary objective behind your social media tool - there are other dimensions to consider of course.  

So you are bringing in the third-party; According to Olivier Blanchard (2011) monitoring keywords is not a bad place to start when it comes to outsourcing (p. 176). “Working with an outside agency that specializes in collecting and measuring predetermined data sets can save an organization time and money” (Blanchard, 2011, p. 176). Oftentimes, an outside agency will be more adept at monitoring fluctuations of online mentions and gathering and measuring consumer insights then an in-house social media manager could. This can make all of the difference when you approach your next campaign. This tactic both frees up your hands to focus on the campaign and allows you to draw in the necessary information to shape your campaign as needed. “At the very least, the monitoring agency can, if it sees a potential problem on the horizon, ring the alarm…and bring it to the attention of the client’s crisis management team” (Blanchard, 2011, p. 176).

Marketing and advertising campaigns are often one of the first components to be outsourced to a third-party due to the fact that a majority of contemporary campaigns are tailored to fit social media. As we began to allude to in the previous paragraph, it is important that the organization handles the overall content creation whilst the third-party deals with the social media aspects. The idea is to have the social media channels managed by the client, while the content associated with the campaign is produced by the organization.

As you can see, there are dimensions, where it would be necessary and sometimes cheaper, that are better handled by a third-party agency. The overall idea is to allow them to worry about the data while you worry about the content creation. Working together tightly here is key, for we all know that every moment in the age of information counts. Now, even if you have decided to outsource your social media to a third-party, it doesn’t mean that your organization will be unable to foster a relationship development with its various publics. Aside from the paid intern method discussed in the sister blog, while the organization outsources it genesis model to a third-party it can concurrently encourage its employees to form a sort of pirate ship model. In this way, the employees of the organization can add an intimate touch while the professionals do the work that otherwise couldn’t be done. 

References

Blanchard, O. (2011). Social media ROI: managing and measuring social media efforts in your organization. Indianapolis: Que Pub.

WillowRidgeMedia. (2014, September 04). How to Outsource Social Media Marketing: Socialmediaonlineclasses.com Bonus Webinar. Retrieved April 26, 2017, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQqsF12dKo8