Outsource right

Social Media is not a task for the same person who sends out your invoices

I get it, as a female entrepreneur, working on your own there is an endless list of tasks to complete just to get through the day, never mind what it takes to grow your business to that next level.  On top of that, there is also the job of running a family and a home. However, there are certain things that you need to do to grow your business, which you have to accept and do, whether you like it or not and one of those things is social media.

It is one the things I have talked myself hoarse about but business women still seem to put this at the bottom of their list of priorities.

If you really don’t have time to do social media then you need to think, budget and plan to outsource it.  But, I see too many people who offload this like some admin task that anyone can do.

The number of people who have outsourced their social media to VAs who also handle their invoices and book their meetings is incredible to me.  It is like handing over your broken down car to the same person who paints your house. They are different skills set and require a different knowledge.

Your social media requires a full strategy against your brand, who your customers are, where they reside online and what you want to achieve with it. It is not about having someone sending a tweet a day and crossing your fingers.

There is a skill set to understand the right strategies to use, to be able to look at the stats and understand how to tweak posts to get the most out of them. To understand the nuances of each platform to know what to post and when. Experts know how to take the values of a brand and put that into an image on Instagram or a published article on Linkedin and to know how to develop the right engagement strategy whether on Facebook or SnapChat.

There are a lot of people who offer social media services and who claim to be experts but who do not stand up to review when it comes to deciding who would represent your brand in a powerful way.  You want to ensure that your hard earned money is spent with people who have the right skills to create growth with your social media.

This is quite a personal post because I have seen too many good female entrepreneurs and friends spend their money because they have not done their due diligence and then they find themselves after a period of time to consider that money wasted.

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6 things to consider

Below are the six things you need consider when you plan to outsource your social media. Six things that you need to research and investigate to ensure that whatever company you hand this over to will respect your brand and help you to grow your business.

1) What is their own fanbase like?

Not everything is about the highest number of followers and likes because it is more about quality. However, a reasonable number of followers on the main platforms shows a consistent use and understanding of how to grow an audience. If you are going to pay someone to take on this important part of your business then you at least want to know that they walk the walk in terms of what they are trying to sell you.

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2) How much Klout do they have?

Klout is a way to measure how much influence someone or a company has on social media.  It is measured between 1 and 100. So, for example, Richard Branson has one of the highest Klout score of 90. You can check out a Klout score on www.Klout.com. The average person has a score of around 40 and the top 5% of Social Media influencers are 63 and above.

Klout does not base its score on the number of followers and fans but on interaction. So if a post gets a lot of likes, shares, retweets and comments Klout will give you a score for that.

Therefore, if someone or a company is trying to sell you their services and they only have a Klout score in the forties and even lower 50s then you may have to do some further investigation to see if they have the knowledge to provide the services that they are trying to sell you.

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3) What is their own social media activity like?

How active and engaged are they? Go to your proposed outsourcers website and using their social media buttons to check each platform. The first warning to watch out for is if they don’t even have social buttons. Why would you promote yourself as an expert but not find it important enough to guide people to your social media accounts?

Go to each of the platforms that they have displayed. Again another warning sign is if they only have a couple, such as Facebook and Twitter, this can show a lack of understanding of how important cross platform promotion is.

Check their activity on each platform. You are looking for consistency of posting.  Are they posting different posts several times a day or do they post just once every other day? Are their posts of value or are they just trying to constantly promote their own services?

Again walking the walk comes into play; posting one tweet a day every other day does not show a knowledge of how to build an engaged following.

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4) What kind of package are they offering?

Cheap is not best at all when it comes to social media. I was asked to review a client’s social media that was being delivered by a service provider.  They were only receiving just one post a day every other day. That is not of any value at all.

I have seen packages such as £150 per month for posting once a day on Facebook and Twitter. This is a just a waste of money.   One tweet a day gets seen by no one.

If you are going to invest, you need to make sure that your investment is going to pay off.

 

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5) They promise what they can’t deliver

One question Social Media experts always get asked is how do I measure my ROI? Any decent social media provider will tell you that it is a waste of time to try and measure it.  It would be the same as trying to measure the ROI on your car. You may be able to do calculations based on the value of the car, depreciation, miles per gallon, service costs…. But how do you put a cost on the car getting you to a child’s football game or school play, or getting you to a first date with someone you end up marrying, or getting you to amazing places, with amazing views? You can’t measure those things and that is the same with Social Media.

Also if a company promises to get you sales based on the work they are doing. That is not true. Eventually, your social media activity will lead to sales, but you will have no way of tracking which route your buyer went to make that decision. Some may like your posts on Instagram and therefore, start to follow you on Twitter where you had a conversation, they may then go to your Facebook page and like what you post, which leads them to your website, where they sign up for your newsletter and after getting emotionally attached to your brand they make a decision to buy.

Social media is about engagement and building relationships and any social media service provider that promises to deliver more is just trying to take your money.

 

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6) Keeping up

Social media and technology change quickly. It seems, at the moment, Instagram releases a new feature every week. Facebook is constantly changing and new apps are added daily to help keep up, schedule and enhance our social media.  you need to ensure that whoever you hand your accounts to keeps up with the changes.  It has only been a couple of years since we were introduced to stories and live and any good social media expert will know to work those into your strategy. They would understand the changing business landscape and how you sell yourself and how you create an experience for your brand through social media.

If you the company you are considering seems to be stuck in a world of Facebook and Twitter posts only then you need to widen the list of companies you are looking to.

 

To sum up

So to end this post just remember each individual item above does not mean that a social media service providers don’t know what they are talking about, but this gives you a guide as to what to look out for.

It’s an important decision to make an investment to outsource your Social Media but you really need to ensure that you make the most out of your investment and that your money is well spent.

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