How to Outsource Your Social Media, Protect Your Valuable Time

Outsourcing. Among some circles, it has a bad connotation. But for those of you whose most valuable asset is time, it can save your time, your family life, and your money. Because unless doing social media is something you truly enjoy, giving it to an expert makes more sense than doing it yourself. I like this article: 10 Reasons You Should Outsource Social Media Marketing To Someone Else and its emphasis on the warning signs for botched social media management, by the way.

Do You Do Your Own Plumbing?

Unless you’re a plumber, construction guy, or handyman, probably not. So why do you do your own social media? When you first launch your business, you may want to save money. But then you realize that your main job is staying healthy so that you can stay in business longer. And social media isn’t usually seamlessly integrated into a business, but an add-on that people think of at the last minute (usually).

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A Few Things to Look For in a Social Media Manager

Besides the big ones, such as sanity and strong communications skills, there are other things to look for. Personally, I like people I work with to be flexible and to have good people skills. Since your SMM has to deal with clients, they ought to be friendly and personable. There are tons of examples of people ruining their reputations with bad customer service, so why not have someone who might actually make you look better? Gasp!

Make Sure the Social Media Manager Has Experience

How long have they been bouncing around the internet? Can they give you a few examples of people they’ve worked with? Do they have good testimonials from customers, for instance?

You may like some of these previous posts about social media managers:

• How to Best Work with a Social Media Manager
• How to Choose a Social Media Manager: 10 Worst Ways
• Social Media Managers: 10 Secrets to Care for Yours

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Avoid Worst Practices

Sure, there are best practices, but there seem to be so many more ways to fail. People seem to find more and more creative ways to fail all the time. For instance, here are The 10 All-Time Worst Customer Service Practices from Forbes. Now consider if those worst practices happen publicly, on social media, and you can imagine how much one mistake can be magnified! Everyone has a smart phone these days, and they’re all snapping pictures and putting them on Facebook.

Flexibility is Key

Employers are becoming more flexible, so entrepreneurs need to be more flexible, too. Here’s an article I like about How to Make Your Workplace More Flexible, from Fortune. So if you thought early on that you didn’t want to outsource your social media, perhaps now that your company is up and running, it’s time to revisit that idea!

How Much Is Your Time Worth?

If you love love love social media, and you can optimize your post better than a manager, then perhaps you don’t need to hire someone. But if the entire process takes too much time (time you’d rather spend at the park or with your kids), then it might be time to hire someone!