In today’s business environment, social media is no longer optional extra for most businesses.
This is particularly distressing for boutique wineries and food producers who realize they need social media and digital marketing, but don’t have the time, knowledge or resources to execute it successfully on their own.
Worse still, is that many give social media a shot by themselves and are eventually left with a mash of dormant social media sites they don’t have the time or experience to administer. Typically they lose sight of their goals and can irreparably damage customer relationships and brand image.
Outsourcing social media is a sensible solutions for many wine brands and food producers.
Advantages include:
- No time wasting due to the learning curve, research, experimentation or constant social platform changes
- Expert assistance in deciding which social networks to enter and why
- Set-up is speedy with positive, measurable results
- Updates are made with consistency, visibility and regularity – key elements in successful social networking
- Traffic and subscribers build rapidly and organically, as “you” regularly engage via your networks
- Boosts and strengthens your online reputation and credibility, serving up a more targeted social presence
- Offers an edge over competitors still struggling with hit-and-miss, do-it-yourself campaigns
- Option to replace advertising budget for social outsourcing – often with much stronger results and at much lower costs
- Social outsourcing often includes superior content creation and professional brand building assistance
- Frees up your time to focus on money-making activities you’re more passionate about and particularly suited to handle within your business
Outsourcing social media receives mixed reviews as many believe it is important to maintain that personal or authentic voice within social media platforms and that can only be achieved via the owner or an in-house delegate.
From a personal perspective, I can easily spend 2 hours every day just on social media management for my own company. That doesn’t include anything particularly fancy, creative and nor does it include research and the constant social platform changes either. So how does a small business owner fit this all in without a little help?
There are many pros and cons to this argument and next week we will look at what can easily be outsourced and what ideally remains in-house.
AND, please note that in no way do I advocate you outsourcing all of your social media management. If you plan to use a third party such as an agency, remember a collaborative approach is the only way to succeed.
Until next time…..
