Having a scoot through my Twitter feed this morning I spotted a tweet offering to ‘manage your Twitter and Facebook posting’. Those of you who know me will be aware that I don’t think that outsourcing your social media posting is a great idea. In fact, go further than that – I think it is a really bad idea.
If you ask someone else to post on your behalf you’re asking them to understand your business and to be able to speak for it. Now that might just work if they were only handling your account but if they take on outsourced social media they will be running a whole load of accounts. Be realistic – can they really understand all these businesses? If they understand the sector you’re in they may well be posting for your competitors as well as for you. If they avoid that conundrum then they will be trying to get their heads around several different sectors – plumbing followed by financial services followed by hairdressing. If your financial advisor came along and offered to install central heating whilst she was there would you go for it?
And what does your phantom poster do with responses? Do they reply or do they ignore them? What about problems, complaints? If they have to refer them to you how long will it take before there is a response?
Anyway, being broad minded I decided to take a look at the website of the company offering these services. They are charging $15 a month for 5 hours posting – that should be the first alarm going off – I don’t know about the US but that is so far below minimum wage as to be a joke so either they are having you on about the number of hours that they are doing or they are employing slave labour – would you want either to front your business? Next I took a look at some of the accounts they are posting to – and that is exactly what they are doing. Marketing tweets, the occasional retweet (other accounts of theirs?) and the odd inspirational quote thrown in for good measure. No engagement, no relationship building.
Now before you say it, I know that there are businesses out there who manage social media for their clients and who offer a professional service but I still hold to my view that it is unlikely that an external business can really build the social engagement that you should be looking to bring to your organisation. Anything less than that just isn’t social.
I’m the Managing Director of Florizel Media. I love working with businesses to help them get the best out of social media and being online. I’ve a dreadful weakness for techie toys, chocolate and handbags. Would love to chat about how we can work together 
As you know Pauline, I agree with you about most things social media but, on this issue we are divided. And, in the interests of transparency, I would point out that my company, fatBuzz provides social media management service to a wide range of organisations throughout the UK.
There are a number of points I disagree with but the main point is that agencies, professions and, consultancies exist to provide expert advice to businesses. To say that these providers can’t possibly understand the businesses they work with is doing a massive disservice to the professional and service sectors in general. Lawyers, accountants, management consultants, PR consultants, marketing consultants, HR consultants,… the list goes on… all provide expert input to organisations because they successfully ‘marry’ their expertise with an understanding of the client’s business and the industry they work in.
fatBuzz works for a large number of clients in most market and industry sectors across the UK; I don’t think you will find a single client that would say we don’t understand their industry. A good agency will employ staff with particular experience that is relevant to the type of clients they work with; there is nothing new in this, it’s the way agencies have worked for years and years.
It is also wrong to assume that all businesses will have the resources to employ, or deploy, staff to specifically work on social media. Many organisations we speak to want to become social but simply don’t have the expertise or the resources in-house to do this – that’s where agencies like fatBuzz can, and do help.
There is a difference between ‘understanding an industry’ (or an organisation) and being passionate about it, that is where I would agree an agency cannot compete; we will always struggle to be as passionate about a business as the people who own it. For this reason, we work closely with clients providing all of the social media set-up and management in the initial stages then, gradually hand it over to them as their experience grows and they become confident about how to do it and, what to say. Usually, by this time they have proved the case to commit enough resources to it to do it in-house.
With regard to dealing with problems, complaints and, negativity, I would have thought this strengthens the argument why you should use an agency. Even clients who are extremely proficient on social media platforms, who we would term ‘very social’ still come to us for advice when there is a negative comment or complaint posted about them on-line – this is exactly the specialist advice that should be sought from agencies.
I know many agencies will work for competing organisations but, we do not and, we know lots of others that don’t. If you are thinking of employing an agency to manage your social media simply ask the question – Who else do you work for?
Finally, I completely agree with Pauline on pricing, it’s always a good indication about the type of service you can expect – if you pay monkeynuts, you get monkeys!.
Pauline, thanks for the post, it was thought provoking and I would like to know what others, particularly those out with the agency environment, have to say on this issue.
Gordon, thanks for your input and comments! As always well worth reading and much appreciated. I know that Fat Buzz provide a fantastic service to their clients and I understand what you’re saying. Supporting and coaching clients in the use of social media is a very important part of what we do and that can involve some heavy input into their social media feeds in the early part of the relationship.
My main bone of contention is the business who, for want of a better phrase, abdicates their social media marketing. Outsourcing in that way doesn’t make sense (in my opinion). Then it’s not a case of obtaining expert advice, it’s a case of ‘doing’ social media without the effort.
I’m glad that we agree on many issues but I think that we’ll have to agree to disagree on this one – although I suspect it’s more a question of degree than outright difference
Thanks Pauline, I don’t think we’re too far apart on this issue.