This is Part 2 of my outsourcing series. To read Part 1, visit the article here.

As I mentioned in my previous post, there are many things that make up social media marketing. Depending on how much time you have and what you’re willing to part ways with, you may decide to go 100% outsourced.

Outsourcing does not mean that you need to hire an agency. It could mean offloading your social media management to someone else on your team. In this context, we’ll take a look at the items that you can outsource and when to know you need to do it.

Content Creation

This encompasses photography, videography, and writing. It depends on what you identify as the most important. It could be a mix of all of the above or finding one photographer and one writer.

The photographer you find should be able to work with you on creating the content you want and delivering batches of it at a time. This way, you’ll have the ability to pick and choose which photo you want for a certain day.

 

You need this if:

  • You have no time to photograph or film videos
  • You dislike all parts of content creation
  • You don’t have the creative juices or training to photograph/film

Strategy Creation & Direction

Another item you can outsource is creating and directing your social media strategy. What are your goals? Who are you targeting? When will you be posting? How do you know you’ve reached any of these goals? These are just a few of the questions your strategy should answer.

Some people specialize only in strategy (hi, me), while others loop in execution for an all-around agency feel.

You need this if:

  • You don’t know where to start for creating a strategy
  • You need someone to create a structure for a content calendar
  • You are posting sporadically and need someone to tell you the best action plan for your business

Execution and Daily Management

This is probably the most time intensive part. Someone has to schedule, post, and respond to your audience. Blasting things out on social media is all good, but why are you spending time in it if you’re not engaging with anyone? What’s the point of having an Instagram account if you don’t thank a customer for visiting your shop?

If you own a location-specific company, like a cafe or a roasting company, I highly recommend finding someone in the company to delegate this task to. You can work together on the strategy and content creation (or maybe you outsource one of those). As a cafe, you might receive questions about a menu item.

The more knowledge that is needed for the role, the more necessary having someone in the company it is. For example, you wouldn’t outsource management of a green coffee sourcing company. Why? Because if you’re doing your job right, you’ll be receiving inquiries about the origins and related sales. Even with training, an agency or freelancer would still need to go through a company employee to glean that information. That means time lost in the interaction and a lackluster social media experience for the potential customer.

It is also very apparent when companies choose to outsource, because the language chosen and photos chosen become nondescript. You see posts about “loving coffee” or “here’s your morning cup” without much industry knowledge backing them up.

You need this if:

  • You don’t have the time to manage social media

Analytics

You can’t have a strategy, execute it, and then just the posts exist off in the ether. You need to know how it all ties together and if you’re doing your job well. How do you know if you meet your goals? With analytics!

Learn to love statistics. There are many free and paid options out there. For the most part, you can use each platform’s native analytics (they’re free, after all). If you need more robust reports or other information, then outsourcing to a software may be your answer.

Sometimes, analytics are provided with other social media outsourced services. For my coaching services, I include analytics reports if the client wants them.

You need this if:

  • You don’t know how to read your current native analytics AND you don’t want to learn
  • You identify analytics as important but you have no time to actually analyze them

Marketing Campaigns

Lastly, you can outsource for specific marketing campaigns. Maybe you want a really big push around the holidays but you don’t have the bandwidth to create and launch this campaign. You can use a marketing agency or freelancer to handle this project.

You need this if:

  • You don’t have the time to handle a campaign (that’s pretty much it!)

 

All of these items that I’ve listed that you can outsource can be combined. Some freelancers or agencies specialize in certain aspects. Agencies are more equipped to handle a full spectrum of marketing services.

Something to keep in mind when you’re considering what to outsource is that you will still need to be involved at some point. There isn’t some magical hand off that happens where social media is whisked out of your brain. You’ll need to be kept in touch to provide content, create a schedule, or even to give feedback. Client engagement is an important aspect of any marketing professional’s success. It’s a red flag if you aren’t talking to them.

In the next part, I’ll address how to find your ideal person. What should you be looking out for?