I've been pretty outspoken in the past about companies that offer outsourced social media solutions. In short, I've been less than enthusiastic about the services they provide. If you're not familiar with outsourced social media, it's just what it sounds like: your company pays a marketing firm or agency to manage your social media stuff for you. For example, if Phil's Fillin' Station ("fillin' station" is old Southern speak for gas station) doesn't want to manage their social media efforts, they pay an outsider to update their Facebook page, Twitter account, and possibly even blog for them. I have had (and still do to a large degree) major problems with this approach.
My Biggest Concerns With Outsourced Social Media
- The first issue with this is that it's not really doing social media the right way...at least not the way I think social media should be done. When social media for business is done really well people get the chance to connect with the company and the people who work there. They're connecting with insiders at the company, not outsiders. This is why Frank Eliason at Comcast was able to create an entirely new team of Twitter-based customer service personnel at Comcast. He was an insider. That's why it worked. An outsourced person doesn't provide that for you.
- An outsider inherently will do more talking more than listening. Listening means you have to answer questions and answering questions means you have to know the answer. Outsiders are less likely to know the answer to the questions. With outsourced social media, your customers are engaging a representative from the company but they're not really talking to someone who knows the company. When you outsource your social media you're asking someone who doesn't know your company to be the face of your company and in my experience the quality of representation is almost never as good as what you get with real employees doing the work.
- Another issue with outsourced social media is that it gives a false sense of accomplishment. The company who hires the firm to do the work feels good because they get to check the social media box off their to-do list, but what they don't realize is that they're very likely paying for activity rather than engagement. Activity is available to anyone who can type words. Activity, however, doesn't mean the social media efforts are even remotely close to working correctly. Engagement requires the right kind of activity by the right people.
Adjusting My Views
Those are my major issues with outsourced social media and why I've not supported it in the past. I've been pretty set in my ways on this...until recently. What I've realized is that I hold a pretty idealistic view of social media in general and almost always default to the more puritanical aspects of it. In some cases, my purist perspectives are too idealistic for where a company is at the time. They may be willing to try to attain the goals I've set for them, but they can't make the jump as directly as I'd like. With that in mind I've had to reevaluate my stance on outsourcing social media as an intermediate step toward getting the company to the ideal position.
The Big Dilemma
My dilemma has been this: if I stayed firm on my original position, that would mean some of my clients would not be able to move forward on social media at all. Some organizations just haven't had the right people in the right place at the right time to take the reins of the social media efforts but simultaneously we were finally getting the momentum necessary to move the organization forward. By holding firm to my position all the other work would stall. The question I've had to deal with is that I either allow a client to stall or I help them bridge the in-between period from now (when momentum has started) until later (when we have a person ready to take over and keep it going for the company). I've decided that part of my job is to help them bridge the gap to reach the point I'm trying to move them toward even if it's not the ideal situation.
My New Rules Of Outsourced Social Media (so far)
So, I guess I'm making some exceptions now, or at least clarifying my own rules here. They are:
- Outsourced social networking (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) should be short term. Maybe this is three months. Maybe it's nine months. If it's over a year, it's not looking very short term and we may have a problem.
- Outsourced social media services should only be done for clients who already have a transition plan to a company employee in place. This will help insure the short term-ness of the work.
- Outsourced social media services should only be done for companies who have the right view of social media marketing...meaning they know it's about earning attention first before using the technology as sales and promotion tools.
- Outsourced blogging should never be delivering posts that are 100% complete. The outsourced posts may be as much as 70% complete, but that remaining part needs to be done by the person from the company who's name will be on the blog post itself. This is to ensure authenticity, voice consistency, and information accuracy.
The bottom line is this: as more companies have tried to get into social media, I've begun to understand even more complexities some organizations have with it and I've had to reevaluate my perspective as a result. If my efforts are to serve clients well, I can do that by continuing to push them toward the ideal position and by helping them all along the way, even if it means building a bridge to manage part of that for them for a short period.
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PS: It turns out my example from above isn't totally fiction. Who knew there really is a Phil's Filling Station (and Restaurant!) out there? Wonder if this will come up in their Google Alerts. We'll see.