Social media marketing has officially become a business. Many in the industry would argue that it’s been a business for years, but until recently it has been a little hush-hush. If you were to count the number of people claiming to be social media gurus, experts, marketers, or strategists a year ago, it would have probably been in the hundreds.
Today, it’s in the tens of thousands, including Charlotte ad agencies and marketing groups.
So if your company is considering moving a few marketing dollars online (where you get a lot more bang for your marketing buck), you need to decide whether to do it yourself, hire someone to do it in-house, or outsource it to a branding agency that can create and execute an effective social media marketing strategy.
Rather than go into a long description of each option, here is a simple “pros and cons” analysis. And here’s a disclaimer, as a member of a Charlotte branding and marketing agency, I am biased towards outsourcing. Our company is scalable to the point that we can handle any client’s online marketing needs however basic or complex. However, this post is intended to be informative – not a sales pitch – so here are some points to consider:
Option 1: Hire Someone to Work Exclusively for Your Company
PROS
- Direct control over the messages, branding, and promotions
- Dedication – an employee with one company in mind will be more interested in the success of that company than a social media firm with many clients
- An ability to keep a finger on the pulse of employees themselves and turn company anecdotes and internal debate into viral content
- Expense to search for, hire, train, and pay a full-time employee
- Sick days? Vacations? Accidents? Resignation?
- Lack of expertise – while there are exceptions, those who are good enough to truly understand and utilize the power of social media marketing are not going to take a “job” when they know they can make more money as part of a team working with multiple companies and consolidating the efforts whenever appropriate.
- In the viral marketing aspect of social media, one person is not able to create the level or volume of branded online marketing content that an experienced branding and marketing agency can
Option 2: Hire an Agency That Does Social Media Marketing
PROS
- Leaving it to the experts – a few social media strategy firms really know what they’re doing. They’ve accumulated the resources, accounts, profiles and contacts to take campaigns to the top, to properly build company-related social media assets, and to get the buzz heading in the right direction.
- Cost – It’s normally less expensive to hire a firm to do social media marketing compared to hiring an individual or team to work exclusively for a company.
- Set goals and monitor result – for most companies, the convenience of being able to set the direction, sit back, and wait for results is extremely appealing.
- Changing landscape – social media sites change their procedures regularly. What works today to get a front page story on Digg or massive “retweets” on Twitter may not work tomorrow. A company who is deeply embedded, who breaths social media every day, can be a tremendous benefit.
- There are thousands of companies and individuals offering social media marketing services who can’t spell “Digg” or “Flickr”.
- Trying to distinguish between the handful of talented, results-focused firms and the thousands of ad agencies that have simply added the words “social media marketing” to their list of services.
Option 3: Do It Yourself of Add it to the Workload of a Current Employee
PROS
- Cheap – all it takes is time
CONS
- Cheap – all it takes is time, a LOT of time.
- Lack of experience – there are guides, ebooks, and blogs on how to implement proper social media strategies. Some work – most don’t.
- Poor execution – having a poorly run social media strategy is worse than not having one at all.
- Regardless of what you choose, try to stay flexible. It’s important to know when something isn’t working as well as it should be.
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