Summary: Social Media Marketing (SMM) seems to be the new buzzword in the marketing industry, every business wants to get in the game yet they seem to be grappling with the question of whether to implement social media in-house or whether to outsource it.

This article will provide an overview of what aspects to consider when evaluating whether to outsource or in-house the social media implementation. We will also discuss various attributes of businesses that impact the social media strategies that might work for them.

Overview: Social media marketing industry is still in its infancy. Whether to outsource social media implementation or develop the capability in-house can make or break what you might be able to achieve in the social media world. And this is not an easy decision.

What do I think about when I think social media implementation?

To put very simply, Social media is all about writing a good engaging post that your audience will not only like to read, but will also respond to. Essentially generate engaging content (posts, articles, images, videos, contests and campaigns).

True, but that’s true for making a rocket as well or making a TV advertisement for that matter.

Social media is very unique in the sense that it’s not purely a marketing medium. The 2 way feedback mechanism makes it more powerful than any other marketing medium. But this is what makes it the most tricky.

A good social media implementation offers a 360 degree communication mechanism for the company.

1)       360 degree because it includes customers, vendors, strategic partners and employees

2)       360 degree because it includes marketing, PR, customer support, technical support, sales, HR, etc.

This is what makes it a difficult choice.

Why In-house?

Social media is a customer touch-point second only to a physical store touch-point, and the breadth of touches that can happen because of its 360 degree nature can make it very complex to manage. Most brands want to retain this customer touch-point internally.

Social media interfaces with all departments of the organization. It is very difficult for any external agency to manage this mode of communication.

Social media requires a very acute sense of business and domain understanding. Most companies offering social media services don’t have enough domain expertise. To make things worse, most social media services companies are technology driven shops, which have little business or marketing expertise.

Why out-source?

Social media is very dynamic. The rules and offering change very regularly. It is not possible for anyone who doesn’t live, breathe and eat social to be up-to-date.

The breadth of capabilities required for good social media implementation makes it cost prohibitive to implement internally. This is exactly the reason why small boutique social shops struggle with large businesses as well. Read the next section on skills required for social media implementation for more details.

Social is about engagement. Brands tend to sell blatantly when doing social themselves. There is no intermediary balancing force. Most brands think they can be balanced, but it doesn’t work.

Skill-set required for Social Media implementation

1. Domain expertise: A keen understanding of the brand is a necessary but definitely not a sufficient condition to develop social content.
2. Marketing / business strategy expertise: Clearly identify / define the message that needs to be propagated.
3. Channel expertise: Geek-like appreciation of social media channels and how each one can be utilized for the brand
4. Social media expertise: Social media tonality and customer behavior expertise.
5. Brand expertise: Understanding of the brand guidelines and brand’s acceptability of social. Will kick-ass be acceptable vocabulary?
6. Innovation / creativity: Defining creative marketing campaigns for the brand.
7. Pure content writing capabilities: Language, grammar and spellings to match the customer or target audience. Different expertise is required for long body (articles, etc) and short body copy (Facebook posts, Twitter posts, Forum participations, etc).
8. Graphic designing expertise: Includes illustrations and designing expertise
9. Video conceptualization and execution expertise: Includes 2-D / 3-D animation, Flash, video and editing expertise.
10. Technology expertise: For developing social applications

So, how do I make the choice between in-house and outsource?

To begin with, social media doesn’t work in an outsource or an in-house mode. It works only in a fully collaborative mode. Here is the model we propose for brands to determine how to manage social:

What you should keep in-house and never outsource?

1)       Response to any question other than marketing question.

2)       Response to customer service queries. I am not concerned about who puts the post on the computer screen, but the brand needs to control every customer service query.

What you should outsource and never keep in-house:

1)       Social Media and channel expertise: It is not possible to keep this skill in-house. It requires a geeks view into social media

2)       Virals and applications: Most brands don’t have the expertise to execute them in-house

The end decision depends on your overall objectives from the social campaign. If you are simply looking to build a presence because everyone else has it, keep the function in-house and manage it. Moment you are looking to expand, get experts in. Beware of small companies who may not have the right expertise to execute the entire social media for you [Refer to skills required section]

Kapil Gupta is a CEO of OMLogic Consulting, one of India’s leading social media agencies. Kapil is very passionate about Online Marketing and is a thought leader in the area of Social Media Marketing [SMM]. Kapil has been an avid speaker on Online Marketing and Entrepreneurship.