I like this blog by Nancy Marmolejo which is very timely – we all know how time consuming “doing” social media really is, so here’s a few pointers from her as well as some additional stuff from me as to what you should and shouldn’t consider outsourcing to Social Media Managers like me!
Entrepreneurs involved in social networking are already feeling the time crunch when it comes to adding this super effective marketing tool to the mix. Smart entrepreneurs utilise other people’s talents and energies in their businesses by outsourcing administrative tasks, so it begs the question: can you outsource your social networking too?
Yes – some of it, depending on the long term aims for your business.
Successful social networking is built upon relationship building and credibility. If you have someone else doing all your social networking, then it’s important that you are transparent about who is Tweeting on behalf of the company. This is done very successfully in the field of customer service and reputation management for instance. You do need to protect your credibility and create a strategy for the relationship building you’re setting out to achieve by ensuring you pick the right Social Media Manager who can properly reflect the look, the voice, and style – the company culture – of your business, and set clear objectives and guidelines at the outset.
The following lists show simple tasks that can be delegated out, and things that you may like to handle personally.
10 Things you CAN Outsource:
1. Short birthday greetings and routine notifications. & Grouping Facebook friends & Twitter followers into lists
2. Monitoring the social media platforms – listening to conversations & finding the ones that you can successfully contribute to – and then contributing within the parameters that you’ve set. Basically this comes down to an understanding which will be created at the outset between you.
3. Inviting people to join your groups (provide a template invite and criteria of who can be invited)
4. Setting up & managing post dated Tweets.
5. Signing you up for all the many social networking sites and creating your profiles – uploading your basic bio, photo, URLs, etc.
6. Social bookmarking articles and blog posts
7. Generating content and assets that you can distribute. You can’t communicate if you’ve got nothing to say or share.
8. Uploading & Optimizing photos, videos, etc.
9. Integrating your many social networking profiles with relevant sites.
10. Making sure your Twitter Tweets pop up all over the place, like on LinkedIn for instance, and getting feeds running on the relevant pages on your website.
 
5 Things NOT to Outsource
1. Any kind of generic “Thanks for the add / follow” response for people’s Facebook walls or Twitter account.
2. Fake blog comments that are veiled attempts to get people to visit your web site or buy your stuff.
3. Answering your personal messages.
4. Rabid friend acquiring with no policy or strategy.
5. Recommendations (unless you pre-wrote and pre-approved them) on LinkedIn.
The full article is linked below and you can see more details on how we tailor our social media management services to each business we work with here
Does the option of outsourcing you’re social media marketing make it seem less intimidating?? Please comment below.
 
http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/Social_Networking_Tip_Top_10_Things_to_Outsource.html