Small businesses rarely have the resources to advance their social media and inbound marketing goals. Staff is too busy working on projects. Even when time is freed up once a major project is over, sporadic investing in these key tasks just won’t make much of a dent in your outreach. Do you know when it is time for you to outsource social media and inbound marketing?
Marketing on social media sites is attractive to many small and medium size businesses for these reasons:
- It can reach a wide or targeted audience.
- It’s very flexible and can easily be adjusted.
- It’s free!
Major social media sites let you use them as much as you like, subject to content approval. Sure, all offer advertising and placement services for a fee, but a really skilled social media practitioner can do it all without spending anything. Right?
Not really.
Just because something is free, it hardly means it’s effective without someone paying close attention and investing in a little advertising. The same applies to inbound marketing—the strategies which pump your social media outreach. Both need dedicated resources or they will simply falter. To make this happen, do you need to outsource social media and inbound marketing?
Social Media Demands Time And Skill
Free social media offers many great tools, but unless you have skilled resources to commit to using them on a regular basis, this strategy won’t bring you much success.
The key skills for marketing on the web revolve around writing for it, a task few enjoy and in which fewer excel. Writing for the web isn’t quite the same as writing a brochure: you need to have a consistent message, with a few keyword phrases in the right places, all flowing in a natural way to encourage readership. Writing can often be time-consuming and it is difficult to produce effective writing on the fly.
Where does this writing go? It’s put on your webpage, your blog, and woven into a few key social media channels appropriate for your business. If you’re successful in starting a conversation with potential clients, you’d better be able to promptly respond to messages left for you via Twitter, Facebook, and other services you use.
When To Outsource Social Media And Inbound Marketing
If your business doesn't happen to have a trained writer on staff with sufficient time to dedicate to web marketing, consider outsourcing some of these tasks. This includes looking for good places to purchase sales leads, which can be less expensive than you might expect. Businesses which collect sales lead data have become very good at it and are often worth checking into. Many even offer a certain rate of return and other guarantees.
Some social media tasks like blogging can remain in house, assisted by a skilled social media professional who can make small adjustments to help your blog get picked up in search engines, while still preserving the personality shining through.
Coupled with a well-placed, well-timed ad on Google, you can attract visitors to your website. A good inbound marketing consultant uses tools to encourage website visitors to agree to receive resources like white papers, newsletters, and other material of interest them. Each delivery is accompanied by a carefully crafted message to resonate with the potential customer.
Inbound marketing also involves collecting information on these leads and creating outreach campaigns to them. No lead is ever left behind!
Create A Social Media Policy For Employees
Getting our employees engaged in our social media and inbound marketing efforts is important. Employees who love their work will talk about it on Facebook and Twitter, and pin photos to their Flickr or Shutterfly accounts. Don’t discourage this, but give them a guidance tool about professional responsibility and how to create thoughtful posts. Many social media consultants offer these services; talk to one about providing a guide to your employees.
