Would you send an intern, alone, to your industry’s most important event?
Would you allow an outsourced contractor to get on the phone, 1:1, with a promising prospect?
We don’t need one more thing to do, but…
As a marketer with a specialty in social media best practices, I’ve come across many businesses who tell me they’d like to have their networks set up and managed by someone else so that they don’t have to think about it. This is so understandable. Most business owners and employees are more exhausted today by their jobs than at any other time in recent history.
But according to a recent article in the LA Times, small businesses are still starting up and even succeeding because they’re focused on “working harder to build relationships that fuel sales.”
You can’t outsource a relationship.
Outsourcing social media is just a bad idea. People out there in the “socialsphere” logically assume that when your company name is on it, someone from your company is behind it. Realizing this, you might seek to control what the intern/contractor does by giving them approved messaging – which is the equivalent of ad copy, which has no place in social media. Hired guns don’t have the expertise to answer your prospects’ questions. There is no substitute for a real, dedicated, knowledgable employee when it comes to relationship building with clients and prospects.
What about Brand Evangelists?
You might get lucky and find a consultant with vast experience in your industry. There are some who look to hire a “brand evangelist.” This is a very special kind of relationship between a brand and a consultant that involves a great deal of access and trust. But most small businesses I’ve come across aren’t looking for such heavy involvement.
What is a social media consultant good for then?
One of the things we do that can save you loads of time is keep up with all of the latest, most excruciating details about what works best. We sit on long webinars learning about where to put keywords in LinkedIn profiles. We eat this stuff up. A good consultant will help you set up your profiles, then teach you the importance of learning to use them yourself. Unless you’re looking to hire someone to be your official brand evangelist, the person you hire to help set up your social media presence should be, first and foremost, a good teacher.
