Social media is transfixing many organisations as they grapple with a digital economy entering its secondary to tertiary phase.
The drive to net the benefits of the digital economy is placing an unprecedented demand on the internal human resources of organisations. But it can be a time-consuming and complex area to manage effectively.
What’s more employment websites feature a load of advertisements are seeking experts in social media from a modest pool of talent.
Social media is still a relatively new discipline. It carries with it its own set or paradigms and rules which must be learnt, predominantly on the job or through online courses such as those run by Google.
Given this point in the ‘lifecycle’ of social media, many organisations may not yet have the necessary skills inhouse to harness the potential of social media.
Each organisation is different and will approach social marketing in a different way. Much depends on budgets, importance placed on marketing as a whole and existing resources.
Ultimately each company needs to weigh up all these variables – plus many more – before deciding how to best handle social media within their business.
To help you find the best fit for your needs consider the following options.
Buy the skills – outsource
There are clear business benefits for outsourcing social media as there are for outsourcing of the marketing function, in general. Perhaps the main benefit is that by outsourcing you are engaging a specialist who is up to date the ever changing trends.
Specialists knows about new emerging channels, how often to post and where and when and how to track the success of any campaign.
Specialist social media agencies also provide specialised advice and as this is their core function they draw on up to the minute information.
By outsourcing you can reduce the overheads associated with additional staff such as office space, IT requirements and supplies.
In addition, the outsourced resource is always available when you need them. You can start deploying social media soon after the allocation of outsource resource as these professionals just pick up and ‘run with it’ without the need to train inhouse.
By outsourcing you can ensure your business has exposure to social marketing expertise that is not bound by your own organisation. An outsourced resource will bring a broad range of experience to bear on your situation which can yield considerable benefits by being objective and relevant.
Outsourcing allows you to focus on your core business. The time you would need to establish an in-house digital marketing expertise can be plough back into revenue generating activities that may yield greater resources down the track.
However, once you start social media it needs to be fed regularly. Many organisations new to the discipline don’t realise it can be time consuming to create the right content that will yield the results they want.
It can be expensive to hire inhouse social talent. Consider that a social media manager can cost $90,000 per annum. You could get a lot of social media consulting time for that amount!
Go inhouse
If you are located in a metro area and can afford the talent you can recruit a social media expert to establish and manage the entire process for your business.
Now let’s consider the benefits of managing social media from within your business. Firstly you are closer to your business and its attributes. This allows you to know what content can be fed into social media channels. In house resources can also have a more authentic authoritative voice for your business.
Social media works best when it is integrated with all other aspects of marketing such as email marketing, your website and events.
Hybrid option
Given every organisation has varying levels of proficiency and understanding of social media there may well be a middle path that would work best. An inhouse resource may be best placed to oversee that integration.
For example, you may consider using an external agency for strategic direction that is implemented by a more junior marketing person who would learn social media on the job.
Possibly the reverse could be a better fit – namely, a capable inhouse resource that manages the social media strategy in your organisation and augments with manpower from an external agency when required.
Whatever model you choose one this is certain social media’s impact on business is here to stay and businesses must resource appropriately.
Fatpublisher provides advice on emerging social media trends to our clients. If you are interested in finding out about our social media packages, please contact us.
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