The Pros and Cons of Outsourcing Social Media Marketing

If you own your own business or if you're thinking about starting a business, you may be wondering if you should outsource your social media marketing efforts. You're probably faced with the temptation quite often, considering the number of social media marketing firms and "experts" that are popping up everyday. While you can't ignore the importance of strategic and effective social media marketing, you really want to think about whether you should outsource such an increasingly valuable part of your marketing efforts today. Here is my list of the pros and cons, given today's competitive marketing climate:

The Pros:

• It is cheaper: Outsourcing social media marketing is a lot cheaper than hiring a part-time or full-time social media marketer. You don't have to pay a salary, benefits, along with all of the other expenses that come along with hiring an employee. Plus, you can outsource your marketing efforts on a "campaign by campaign" basis, and if you want to work with another social media firm in the future, you can switch without much hassle.
• They are the "experts": Social media marketing firms specialize in social media so they are up to date with the hour by hour and day by day changes that happens in this fast-paced area of marketing. If you don't have time to keep up with these changes while you run your business, you are better off passing this type of work over to someone who studies these changes for a living and can make the most out of your marketing needs. 
• Black Hat SEO: There are plenty of "tricks" that search engine optimizers and social media gurus can use in order to push your online presence up through website and social media rankings. Social media marketing firms are (hopefully) aware of the consequences of Black Hat SEO and will avoid using such frowned-upon techniques in order to market your business. 
• They are prepared:  Social media marketing firms often have all of the systems and processes in place to make sure that your social media campaign is flawless. There are plenty of websites and software platforms that they use (that you may not be aware of) in order to monitor your online presence and the effectiveness of your social media marketing efforts. 
• Your hands are free to run your business: Let's face it. Social media marketing is time-consuming, and it changes literally on a day to day basis. By outsourcing this type of work, you can free yourself up to do other things that require your attention with running your company. 

Cons:

• Their attention may be divided: Social media marketing firms are trying to gain as many clients as possible and may be dividing their time up between multiple clients which can lead to oversimplified lazy marketing efforts. Depending on how they have their business set up, your social media marketing needs may not have the full attention of any given employee at the company on a day to day business. Like many traditional marketing firms, oftentimes the bigger client gets the most attention, while smaller clients are not given the attention that they deserve.
• Who is really the expert? Marketing firms are experts in marketing - NOT in your field of expertise. In today's marketing world, engagement is crucial on social media platforms. If you hire a firm to take care of your social media needs, they may not be able to engage with your business's followers on the same level of a person who is in your field and can effectively answer questions that your followers may have. For example, if you run a hair salon and you outsource your social media marketing needs to a firm, will that firm be able to answer the questions that inevitably appear on your business's Facebook wall or Twitter feed? Remember, social media is about being social. If your followers are not getting their questions answered on your Facebook wall, they will gladly go to your competitors to get their answers.
• Do they really have the time? Social media marketing today is all about being social and interactive with your followers as much as possible, and marketing firms (in some cases) don’t have the time to develop substantive interactive dialogue while they are courting future clients and running various social media campaigns.
• Beware of Black Hat SEO: Some social media marketing firms may be using "Black Hat" SEO techniques (search engine optimization techniques that "cheat" engine algorithms in order to improve your website's visibility) in order market your business. While those techniques may be effective in the short term, eventually engines like Google catch up to these techniques (like Google's famous "Panda" update last spring that de-ranked a slew of businesses and their visibility in the search engine). Many SEO experts and social media firms found themselves at a loss when they had to explain to the business execs why their optimization techniques were no longer effective after Google's Panda update. 

Ultimately you should do research on any firm that you're considering working with. They should be able to offer some sort of social proof of their work and should provide you with details as to how they plan to strategically execute your social media marketing needs.