The Complete Guide to Outsourcing Social Media Management

Written by Andrew Jenkins, FoundeR at Volterra

Companies outsource vital functions of their operations all the time, even social media marketing. The key to outsourcing social media management is to thoroughly review potential vendors and evaluate which activities are the most suitable for outsourcing. Many stakeholders will be involved, both internally and externally, and companies need to mitigate risk and ensure a transition of activities to the chosen vendor with as little disruption or friction as possible.

Some of the main reasons businesses outsource social media management include but are not limited to no in-house expertise, lower costs, near-term need, and/or lower priority.

Organizations regularly face the dilemma of deciding whether to build social media capabilities in-house or outsource support to an external vendor. There is no single clear choice. An organization’s decision will depend on its current circumstances, needs, and near-term objectives.

We often work with clients who need help with social media in the early stages of their business, but over time they build their team, including social media resources. Others elect never to staff up and invest in other business areas. Neither situation is more correct than the other. It is simply a matter of choosing the right path for them at the time. Considerations will change as an organization grows and matures.

You might very well be an expert on social media, but you are likely involved in several areas, and even if you are solely focused on social media, you can’t always do it alone. You likely need help. Getting external expertise, especially in areas where you may be lacking in knowledge or experience, will certainly prove helpful.

Agencies pride themselves on staying abreast of the changing social media landscape and maintaining subject matter expertise. They make it their job to stay on top of things while you may not have the time or inclination. In some cases, they have direct relationships with the major social media platforms. They can leverage those relationships to ensure your social media strategy is based on the latest best practices and recommendations.

I speak with some platforms regularly and review different client campaigns to ensure they are designed optimally and make any necessary adjustments. I also bring the learnings and insights back to our clients so they receive value from our support of more than one client and see our expertise being validated.

We focus solely on social media for good reason. There is enough to worry about just with social media. There are new apps, changes and updates to existing ones, platform updates, and changes regarding advertising. It is hard even for us to stay on top of it all, and this is what we do for a living.

Expertise isn’t just about social media platforms and related strategies. Now you have to be an expert on Facebook’s ad manager, how to use Canva for graphic design, and be versed in boolean queries for your social media listening. It is hard to find all of that in one person, which is where external agencies can play a role with their team of experts.

Benefits of social media management outsourcing

We, like many other agencies, invest heavily in tools and technologies. Agencies typically use purpose-built tools and technologies that no single client would invest in nor could likely justify. In most cases, these solutions are more than any one client would need but that the agency can use to provide value distributed across multiple clients. To a certain degree, it provides a competitive advantage.

An agency can quickly provide a lot of value without needing a large team. You may not need everything we can provide daily, but we can provide analysis and reporting as needed while continually compiling data over time. This is core to our value proposition and not something clients can or wish to invest as extensively in.

Our technology partners help us keep up to date with the latest capabilities. A number of our vendors have customer success representatives who work with us to make sure we know about the latest updates and are getting the most from their solutions. This makes us more productive and more valuable to our clients.

You are busy and have to manage multiple tasks and stakeholders. Delegating to internal and external resources can make things more efficient. Ultimately, it all rolls up to you, but that does not mean you must be involved in the “doing”. You most certainly will oversee the development of the social media strategy and its execution. Still, you won’t necessarily be tasked with specific tactics and tasks like building an ad within Facebook’s ad manager.

At any given time, agencies have the resources to research, create, and schedule content. We have copywriters and designers working simultaneously to create engaging content such as animated gifs, carousels and graphic quotes. We are reviewing brand monitors to ensure we are getting relevant mentions. We produce analytics and brand monitor reports monthly but sometimes are tasked to do ad hoc analysis regarding competitors or to seek deeper insights for clients.

Social media management engaging content

We research and write blogs every month for disparate clients in various industries. We create videos and other rich media as audience tastes change regarding engaging content. We devise and execute paid social media campaigns across Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Snapchat, with budgets ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars.

You are likely not dealing with that kind of volume of activity, but it should give you a sense that an agency may be better suited to do certain things related to your social media efforts because of their extensive experience.

One of the best places to start when considering if outsourcing social media management relates to your objectives. What are you trying to accomplish, and how much time do you have? Do you have the internal capabilities to achieve those objectives? While hiring permanent staff may help, will it help you hit your targets in the defined timeframe?

Maybe an agency is a short-term solution, and you can gradually build internal capabilities. An external agency may be less costly or can be treated differently regarding accounting for the related investment and expense. It may be worth going through the exercise of identifying your strengths, weaknesses, and preferences and deferring to the agency for where they can best deliver value.

How to choose a social media management agency

Do your due diligence. Look for third-party validation by asking for referrals, testimonials and reviews. Google them. Google their key leadership and check them out on LinkedIn and other social media platforms, where applicable. Ask for examples of companies they have worked with and content they have developed.

Check out sites like Clutch.co and The Manifest to find service providers with the specific industry experience you need. Conduct some screening calls to speak to them firsthand. The person with whom you made the buying decision may be different from the person or people you work with once social media support begins. You will collaborate with them, so you want to ensure it will be a pleasant experience and you are confident in their capabilities.

There are many things and stakeholders to consider when deciding on outsourcing social media management. You need to do your due diligence regarding your current social media operations, assess the gap between where you are now and where you want to be and what tools and resources you will need, internally and externally, to get there. Where should you begin?

Conduct your own situational analysis

What is the current state of your digital marketing? Are you at a point of inflection or pivot point? Are things like your brand well-established? What kind of digital marketing are you doing now? What elements will you be adding, and in what timeframe? Are you just getting started, at least with social media? What kind of resources do you have in place? What stakeholders do they support?

Starting social media marketing from scratch will require more effort upfront, including paid. This will have implications for resourcing. Are you adding new channels, content types, or tactics? Some things may be required on an ongoing basis, while others may be needed for a limited time.

How far is your organization from its long-term digital marketing objectives? What are some near-term milestones being pursued? What has worked thus far? What changes are being made? Is there a clear sense of what success will look like? Has a budget been established? A business case made? If not, are you being tasked with either of those? If either or both exist, then are they sufficient?

Capability

Have you conducted a skills audit of your existing resources? If there is a skills gap, can training be applied to close the gap with existing resources in time to execute? What resources will you need on an ongoing basis versus part-time or for a specific task or project that will end?

Skills can be acquired through training, but you can’t shortcut experience. How much experience do you have collectively amongst your team? Would you describe any of them, including yourself, as experts? If there is any expertise, then what is it? Strategy? Content? Graphic Design? Video? Podcasting? Social media listening? Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, TikTok, YouTube? Some of them or all of them?

It is unlikely that you will find one or more people with subject matter expertise in every aspect of social media marketing. That Swiss Army Knife of an expert likely doesn’t exist. You must prioritize what expertise you want to hire or develop internally and what you might want to contract.

How quickly do you need to be implementing your social media marketing strategy? Are you conducting an audit and competitive analysis before you start, or have you done so already? If the latter, what did you learn? What kind of ongoing activities, such as analysis and reporting, do you envision? What kind of content do you need to create? How much and how often?

Hidden Costs

Social media takes more than just people. No matter whether staff or contractors, they need tools to create and distribute content. They need to be able to monitor for brand mentions and listen for actionable insights stemming from online conversations. They need to be able to schedule posts and analyze the results of their efforts.

Your social media efforts can’t scale without tools to help automate some of the time-consuming and repetitive tasks. What tools do you already have in place, and what are you being asked to find a budget for? Basically, what does your tech stack look like now compared to what you want to have in the future? Can you afford it? Are you better served to buy partial access to some tools through an external vendor who is bearing the entire cost?

Beware of the bright new and shiny social media tool. It may be more than you need. You may need help to make a sufficient case for its use. Perhaps your current or future social media activities are just not at the level to justify the investment in one or more of the tools being considered.

You must also consider whether you are building a tool kit filled with a collection of task-specific tools or trying to find one enterprise solution that covers most of your needs. The former can become costly because you are dealing with disparate vendors, but you can also negotiate with each vendor independently and drive costs down. Enterprise solutions can be played off of each other to drive costs down, but the mere fact that they are being referred to as enterprise can set pricing at higher levels from the very beginning.

How long have they been in business?

Should you engage them, have they been in business long enough to give you the confidence that they will still be around for years to come? Have they always been conducting the same type of business, or did it evolve?

Have they worked with similar companies or industries like yours?

Gauge the level of knowledge about your company, competitors and your industry. Can they point to examples of the work and provide details about their impact?

If they do not have experience with similar companies or industries, but they can validate their knowledge and experience, then do not dismiss them. Going with a vendor with less experience overall but within your industry may not be as wise as going with a company with substantial yet diverse experience and greater adaptability.

How does their workflow or work style match your existing processes?

You are busy and have to manage multiple tasks and stakeholders. Being able to delegate to internal and external resources makes things more efficient. Ultimately, it all rolls up to you, but that does not mean you must be involved in the “doing”. You most certainly will oversee the development of the social media strategy and its execution. Still, you won’t necessarily be tasked with building the ad within Facebook’s ad manager, for example.

You will want to define a workflow between internal and external resources and make sure everyone knows who is responsible for what. For example, who will present performance metrics to key stakeholders? Will the agency provide the information and brief you for you to present? Will they present instead? It could be a hybrid where you present, and agency representatives join you as backup and provide colour to the presented information.

Overall, outsourcing is meant to help, not hinder. While they may have a certain work style, it should not be disruptive to yours. Strive to find common ground for collaboration early in the engagement and agree on frequency and type of communication and which stakeholders are to be involved. Push back if they ask for process changes rather than accommodating yours.

Yes, there will be work bringing the agency resources up to speed, answering their questions and giving them access to any necessary tools, resources and stakeholders. However, once they are up and running, the goal is for them to achieve some degree of self-sufficiency while you maintain oversight.

As part of your due diligence, you need to learn how they have dealt with governance and related requirements in the past. Have they helped previous clients develop and implement social media policies and guidelines? Some industries require more governance than others, so ask them about that experience, if any.

How do the manage client passwords and access to client social media accounts? What procedures do they have in place when and if a member of their team leaves? How do they deal with confidentiality, especially regarding intellectual property, competitive or proprietary information? Are they adequately insured?

Do they have standard operating procedures for brand reputation management and escalation to key stakeholders? What happens if someone makes a negative comment? How would they handle it? What kind of workflow will be required for content approvals, and who will be involved?

We have extensive experience in regulated industries and are accustomed to extended approval processes with key stakeholders such as compliance. If your company is in a regulated industry or simply requires more time for stakeholder approval, please ensure the agency has the experience and patience to deal with that. Not every agency does or wishes to.

Success is going to look different for every organization. Focus on your goals and align your efforts to pursue them. Provide a clear vision of what you want and expect from your vendor. Regularly communicate that vision and conduct frequent status updates to keep everyone on track and hold your vendor accountable.

Make sure you have clearly defined your corporate goals and your social media goals that are designed to support those corporate goals. Ensure that, in conjunction with your agency, you develop a social media strategy with performance metrics that you can communicate throughout your organization and get key stakeholders onboard with their support.

Developing a Content Strategy

Conduct a content audit if you have not done so already. Determine what content you have and in what formats. What can you use as is and what can be repurposed into new formats? Most organizations have more content than they realize. Avoid creating content that is only shared once. Where possible, keep content in rotation by leveraging different copywriting and formats. Squeeze as much juice out of the content lemon as possible. Work smarter rather than harder.

Align your content planning to your corporate strategy and objectives. What will be developed in-house by subject matter experts (SMEs)? What can you assign to the agency? What production volume can you manage while still keeping in mind any approval process requirements?

Develop a content calendar with placeholders for milestone dates/events to aid content planning and provide sufficient time for development. Populate the calendar extensively but leave some slack in the system or flexibility for moving planned content around if complications or different priorities arise.

Err on the side of over communicating, especially in the beginning. Make sure they have a seat at the table, where possible, to keep abreast of corporate planning and upcoming changes. This will also present an opportunity for them to provide input regarding where and how social media can complement what is being planned and avoid any missed opportunities.

Make sure that you have the right tools, resources and processes in place to track your performance over time across various social media platforms. Determine your cadence for reporting. Define an approach that suits you based on past and current reporting processes. For our clients, we report monthly, quarterly and yearly for ongoing activity. For paid campaigns, we report throughout the campaigns and provide a recap upon their completion.

Successfully outsource social media management

Measuring your ROI

Assuming you defined your goals and objectives and explained them to the agency, make sure you agree on the key performance indicators (KPI’s) being tracked, by whom and how they will be presented. These may change over time as stakeholders ask questions, seek clarifications and shift priorities.

Based on client input over time, we use the three C’s of social media ROI to explain social media performance to stakeholders.

Community – tracking the growth in your community based on the number of followers and potential reach across all your social media channels.
Content – tracking engagement with content to ensure that the content is resonating with the current community and beyond.
Conversion – tracking referral traffic to the client’s website and related business outcomes such as newsletter signups, blog visits, contact form completions, webinar registrations, downloads and purchases.

No clear delineation between internal and external resources which creates confusion
Unrealistic or unclear expectations by both parties
Not incorporating social media into overall digital marketing and communications strategies
Insufficient and/or misuse of budgets
Impatience regarding the length of time that social media marketing takes to have an impact
Poor communication between parties
Poorly defined workflows, escalation procedures and approval processes
Ignoring data, best practices and other informed recommendations

It can vary from hundreds to thousands of dollars per month, depending on whether you are hiring one person or an agency. It can also depend on whether you are paying an hourly rate, a monthly retainer or a percentage of campaign budgets in the case of paid campaigns.

Some have packages with associated prices based on the amount of content in terms of posts developed and how many channels are to be managed or supported. Some companies choose to retain the management of their social media accounts but outsource service elements such as content development, analytics and reporting.

Ultimately, you have to determine your requirements and whether one resource or an agency and their associated proposed services will meet them within your budget.

You have a mandate to pursue and achieve corporate goals. If you can do that with existing resources or by hiring additional permanent staff then that is great. However, if you are not sure of your long-term resource requirements, you don’t have the time to build the internal capabilities needed, you have budget constraints and/or your leadership wants to walk before they run then outsourcing may be the path to take.

You will still have oversight regarding planning, defining the KPI’s and communication with stakeholders. However, outsourcing social media management can be a viable alternative to staffing up, at least in the near term, to develop and execute a social media strategy and achieve business growth faster than you could have otherwise.

About the Author

Andrew Jenkins is an International Speaker, Podcast Host, University Instructor and a founder at Volterra, a Social Media Management Agency that helps companies grow revenue and compete to win by embracing social media and social selling strategies.