The Outsourcing of Social Media

In an ideal world, a company handles its own social media tactics. Who better to engage and create content than the people drinking the corporate Kool-Aid every day.

In the real world, however, economics can’t be ignored or avoided. Like any corporate activity, social media is an operating cost that is carefully scrutinized to see if there is a good return on investment. And like any operating cost, companies are always looking to see if it can be done more efficiently.

This is where the outsourcing comes into play, and why more social media activity is likely going to be handled by third-party specialists as opposed to in-house. From an economic perspective, social media can be done on a more cost-efficient basis by companies that are structured and focused on social media tactics.

Their biggest advantage is they can spread operating costs across multiple clients. Rather than having a team focus on one company’s social media activities, the team can handle several customers concurrently, thereby spreading overall costs. For companies, it means getting the same performance at a much lower cost.

At first, the idea of outsourcing social media may seem odd because talking to existing and potential customer in a public form should, in theory, be done by a company itself. In time, however, more companies will realize it makes economic sense to let someone else handle social media tactics because it can be done as well and at a lower price.

It’s based on the same economic thesis as customer service, which is farmed out to call centres (aka outsourced) rather than being done internally. The same economic approach is also applied to public relations, advertising and digital marketing. There’s no reason to have your own people do it when it can be done by someone else.

Better yet, if a company’s outsourcing partner fails to perform or becomes too expensive, they can be easily replaced, which is an easier and less painful exercise than firing employees.

Another advantage to outsourcing social media is it’s a better and safer way to scale. Rather than hire more people as social media activity expands, companies can get their outsourcing partners to do the hiring.

In the past few months, I have seen a growing number of companies, particularly larger companies that want to drive efficiencies, happily hand over social media tactics to a social media agency. It lets companies focus on core operations while still being able to execute tactically.

At the same time, companies are able to maintain control strategically and economically with less economic risk.

What do you think? Is the outsourcing of social media economically inevitable?

Article:http://blog.sysomos.com/