You know it’s time to consider outsourcing your social media management when…

You don’t know how to create a social media strategy.

An expert team of social media marketers will always start working on your brand by creating a social media strategy. This process will establish an overview of which platforms will be managed and what the objectives for each are. It will also determine topic clusters – the brand-relevant themes that can be talked about – and buyer personas, which will detail the brand’s target audience by characteristics, job roles and preferred platform to use. Lastly, it will establish the tone of voice which will appear across all platforms. The strategy will also help you measure KPIs and organise the responsibilities of each party.

You don’t know which platform is right for your business to be on.

Many people who aren’t as obsessed with social media as we are might not know that each social media platform can be used for a certain purpose. We explain these differences to our clients as follows:

• Facebook: This platform is more for sharing team news, expertise and pictures, and it is a great place to run competitions for your brand.
• Instagram: This platform is where you can get creative. Share pictures, videos and stories, and you can even go live with your followers.
• LinkedIn: Think of this platform as putting your virtual suit on. Share blogs, client case studies, information on your services and news from your industry on here.
• Twitter: This is the conversational platform. Ask questions, start polls and join threads to get involved with the conversations that other people are having in your industry.

Your social media marketing team can advise your business on which platform/s will be the best fit to increase your brand awareness and sales.

You don’t have the expertise in-house.

When we say expertise, we mean there isn’t someone in your business who is committed to researching your industry on social media, can incorporate keywords that can help your SEO and has platform-specific knowledge. A great social media marketer will also have in-depth knowledge of the best times to post on each social media platform (which means your audience will be more likely to see your posts in their feed), will know the relevant hashtags to include in your posts and will be able to track the activity of your competitors.

You need help creating content and graphics.

Keeping a strong branding theme across all platforms is important. This is similar to storytelling, and our marketers are experts when it comes to telling your brand’s story, including who makes up your team, your ethos and what you can offer your potential clients. You might also need a consistent range of graphics that showcase your business in the best way possible alongside photography. Our social media team is talented at creating graphics on tools like Canva, but we also have a dedicated in-house graphic designer on hand for the bigger jobs.

You don’t know how to report and analyse social media data.

It can be confusing receiving lots of numbers and percentages when you don’t know what they mean. Our reporting data is easy to follow, and we always explain any technical or platform-specific terminology to our clients. A top-line report will cover the engagements, impressions, clicks and follower count of each social media platform your business is active on.

• Engagements will be the amount of times your followers have commented on or liked your content.
• Impressions will be the amount of times your content appeared on your followers’ feeds.
• Clicks will be the amount of times your followers have clicked through from your social media content to your website.
• Follower count will be the percentage of followers that have been gained on your profiles during the month.

We can also show you which posts performed the best over the month, which will help both of us to understand what works strategically on your social media platforms.

You don’t know how to run Facebook and Instagram advertising effectively.

This part of social media can seem scary to some. A lot of people might not even know how to set up their own ad account. But don’t worry, that is what an outsourced social media team is there for! Successful advertising campaigns start with agreeing on an allocated budget and time frame. Next, the team will carve out the targeted audience by selecting their location, gender, age and interests. Last, but definitely not least, is the actual ad. Your social media team will have experience in formulating creative ads that are in carousel, video or collection format to name a few. They will be able to tweak the ad throughout its time frame to maximise its delivery to your target audience and increase objective results. If you are a data lover, this could become your favourite part as the advertising results are broken down into segments such as impressions, cost per result, frequency and unique link clicks.

You are ‘time poor’ when it comes to social media.

If you are running a business and managing staff, overseeing finances, and closing deals, the last thing you will have on your mind is posting on Twitter five times a week. You might also find that, with no one solely dedicated to running your social media accounts, customer questions or complaints are missed. An outsourced social media team will create a posting strategy that works for your business and keeps your audience engaged. They will also be on hand to answer any questions or queries that come in from customers, within an effective time frame. Essentially, your social media marketing cannot be completed within an hour or two a week. Maintaining and growing your social media presence is a daily job and requires constant attention.

It makes sense when it comes to cost.

If you hire a Social Media Manager within your company, you will be paying them a yearly salary with possible bonuses and have to think about taxes, holidays and sick days. In comparison to this, hiring a marketing agency to become your extended team means you will pay a monthly fee for the work they complete. All the services and tools that an agency uses will be wrapped up into that monthly fee, and you will have a number of knowledgeable people behind your marketing rather than solely one person.

If you’ve read through this list and related to at least three of the points, it might be time to think about outsourcing your social media marketing. Our team of dedicated social media marketers have a wealth of experience when it comes to running campaigns for a range of businesses in different industries. We’d love to tell you more about our success stories and welcome any calls or emails.