Tag: insourcing

To outsourcing social media or not

The advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing social media:

+ Outsourcing companies have the expertise to manage multiple social media platforms and understanding which are the best social media platforms to help realize a social business strategy (Craig, 2013; VerticalResponse, 2013).

+ Outsourcing companies can be a time saver, because it can take quite a while to learn about all the different types of social platforms out there, to grow an engaging audience, and to fully realize a social business strategy (VerticalResponse, 2013). Also, outsourcing companies don’t have to be bogged down with another day to day tasks of business requiring their services (Craig, 2013).

+ Outsourcing companies can be a fiscal resource saver, given that accomplishing a social business strategy can takes resources away from core business activities (VerticalResponse, 2013).

– Outsourcing company may not fully understand the business nor the industry in which the business resides (Craig, 2013; Thomas, 2009).

– Outsourcing company is not part of the everyday marathon of business (Thomas, 2009).

– An outsourcing company cannot be 100% authentic when responding to the customers because they are not the actual voice of the company (Craig, 2013; Thomas, 2009; VerticalResponse, 2013).

Two social media components that are more likely to be outsourced:

  • Setting up the multiple social media platform profiles, due to the tedious tasks of filling out the same standard fields/details in each account (Baroncini-Moe, 2010). Social media platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc. all have standard fields like a short bio, name, photo, username selection, user/corporate identity verification, etc. This non-value-added work can consume valuable time, yet do not compromise a corporate’s authentic voice.
  • Automation of some status updates across some/all social media platforms (Baroncini-Moe, 2010). For instance, a post made on a blogging website could also be forwarded to a LinkedIn and Twitter profile, but not in Facebook. This differentiation should be explicitly stated in the social business strategy.

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