The Case Against Outsourcing Social Media

Over the past year, I’ve taken on several nonprofit and small business clients to help them with implementing social media initiatives related to their mission. For some of the engagements, it was clear that I was the “face” that was managing the social network(s). For others, me and my team were behind the scenes pushing out the content and connecting with their community under the name of the organization. Sort of like a ghostwriter. Not this Ghostwriter, who was awesome. This one.

I’ve also provided social media training for nonprofit organizations and small businesses getting started with figuring out strategy and learning how to use the tools. I’ve enjoyed that work a lot more because I felt confident I was actually helping them build the capacity to tap into the power of their online communities. For instance, yesterday I gave a “Social Media 101″ training for a small group of nonprofit leaders who wanted to learn more about how to make social media work for their organizations. They were able to see examples of how other nonprofits were using the tools successfully and get answers about how they might best incorporate them into their own work. From the conversations I had with them afterward, I could see that they felt empowered by having this new information.

So, I’ve learned a lot from both of these types of experiences and I’ve recently come to the conclusion that the best way to take full advantage of your social networks is NOT to outsource social media to a consultant, but to increase the capacity of your organization to do it in-house and align it with your existing marketing and communications strategy.

In fact, Jay Baer just wrote a fantastic piece about why 2011 will be the year of social media convergence that emphasizes the importance of investing in social media from the ground up. We already know that organizations that use social media are more successful than those that don’t. And if Jay’s predictions are correct (and I’m pretty sure they’re on point), nonprofits and businesses are going to have to get even more social in 2011.

What that means is that we’re all going to have to learn how to use social media for ourselves. The way I see it, social media tools are communications tools just like the telephone and email. Would you hire someone to answer your phone or email pretending to be you? Maybe you would, but I definitely don’t recommend it. Outsourcing social media can save you time, but in the long run I think it’s a missed opportunity. If you do hire a social media consultant to work with your organization, ask them to train your existing staff or volunteers or board members on how to use the tools. That’s where the real value is.

Here are a few reasons why:

Cost

Outsourcing social media means that you’ll always have to pay to bring that expertise inside your organization. And many times, the hourly fee or flat fee to hire the consultant or firm adds up to someone’s full or part-time salary over the course of a year. From a budgeting perspective then, it’s cheaper to train current staff and build the cost into their salaries to make it a part of their everyday duties.

Missed Connections

Unless your social media consultant is extremely well-versed in your industry as well as your particular mission, vision, objectives and goals, they will miss important opportunities to connect with or proactively reach out to the kinds of folks who can support your organization through social networks. For example, if I don’t know who your funders or potential funders are, how can I find them online and then build relationships? Your staff knows this stuff in and out, so its best for them to be the ones at the helm of the tools looking for opportunities to connect with the right people.

Sustainability

A good social media consultant can set up great tools and systems to manage your social network, but if you never learn how to use them yourself, you’ll always be dependent on them and forced to pay for their time. If you train current staff to do it, you not only increase their expertise, but you also increase the capacity of your organization to learn and act on new ideas. When social media is in-house, staff expertise will only grow and get more sophisticated as they experiment with the tools and learn from their efforts.

For these reasons, I’m shifting my social media work away from hands-on consulting to training and empowering staff to take on these initiatives themselves. In the long run, I really think organizations need to own their social networks and build their internal capacity to leverage the power of their online communities.

Would love to hear your thoughts on this. Do you agree or disagree? Should organizations completely outsource their social media initiatives? How is this method working or not working for your organization?

http://www.convinceandconvert.com jaybaer

Great post Rosetta. You nailed it. The next phase of social evolution is moving beyond “official” siloed presences, and pushing sociability out to all corners of the organization. My friends at CoTweet even predict that within 18 months, many employees will have 2 Twitter accounts – a personal one and a business one (the same way most people have 2 email addresses).

The collection of your employees and volunteers have more social connections and influence than your “official” social channels can ever hope to garner. Leverage your people, not just your logo. That's the future.

http://www.rosettathurman.com/ Rosetta Thurman

Thanks for reading, Jay! And I love this: “Leverage your people, not just your logo.” I agree that there's so much more we can do with social media if organizations empower their own people to do so.

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http://twitter.com/Nitsy73 Anita Hovey

You’re absolutely right on all points. I can’t really disagree…they way to go is to build it into your current capacity…HOWEVER there are many small businesses and non-profits who just don’t have the time NOW to do it. It takes A LOT of time to do it right…so when I tell a charity that they need to be tweeting at least a couple of times a day and using Facebook daily, plus they need to be interacting on LinkedIn, and then set up a JUMO profile…they just don’t have the time (and honestly, some of them don’t have the interest and are doing it only because they know they should). Having worked in charities for 14 years, it’s not so easy to just fit in those extra little things. I don’t believe these ARE extras (like you), but to them, they are still extras. There is still a long way to go before the charities I’m thinking of will be able to make social media part of their job descriptions unfortunately. If it’s not directly bringing in donations/sales, it’s not worth their employee’s time…there is often not patience for the “Long Tail” to kick in.

I also agree that becoming a social media ghostwriter (love that analogy) is more than just posting. You have to become a part-time employee for it to work. If you treat it like a consultant, it won’t work and I’m seeing both ends of the spectrum here.

Thanks for the though-provoking post.
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http://twitter.com/blackgirlinmain Blackgirlinmaine

In theory I agree with but as the Executive Director of a small community center with a staff of 3 and oodles of volunteers there is no way anyone on my staff could handle social media. I know because we tried and basically there are simply not enough hands to manage it. In my case if my board would give the okay I would much rather hire someone to handle our social media rather than trying to manage it myself or ask my staff to do more.

On the other hand for larger agencies it makes sense to hire someone in-house to do it rather than using an outside consultant.
http://www.microsourcing.com/disciplines/seo.asp MicroSourcing

Keeping social media in-house also makes reputation management much easier, since the team in charge of social media can coordinate with the PR and Marketing Department; in this manner, all their efforts are integrated and well-aligned.