(3 min. read)
Gone are the days of direct mail, flyers, and commercials to get your business in front of customers (or is it? More on that later). These days, using social media to build a strong brand reputation and connect with your audience is a necessity. Since the platforms are free to register and offer low-cost options for advertising, it makes for a good return on your investment. Or does it?
Social media is a time commitment. It takes time to build a following, gain the right audience and establish your presence. Once you have developed a good following, you must continue to cultivate it, focus on continued growth, respond and interact with comments, answer questions and sometimes provide customer service if a complaint is made.
If you’re only spending 30 minutes a day managing your social media, you likely will not grow enough to make a difference for your brand. If you’re managing more than one channel, then the necessary time commitment grows exponentially.
Managing this as a small business owner can become overwhelming. However, you may need to be realistic about what you can commit to really doing. While managing your brand’s social media in-house may be the right decision, consider these four key benefits to outsourcing it to a qualified provider.
More Experience = Faster Growth
A seasoned social media expert can produce results at a faster rate, which can, in turn, grow your brand faster than you might expect. An experienced provider has been intrenched in multiple social media channels and knows the platform specifics in a way that you may not. Things are always changing; it is their job to stay current on trends, have ongoing conversations with your audience, and be able to pivot the strategy as necessary. It is these elements that will produce a stronger brand presence and generate positive outcomes such as more leads and increased business.
Better Tools
There are a lot of tools available to help you manage your social media. As a small to mid-size business, it may not be financially viable to invest in these things. There are free tools that are available but paid versions are often more robust with advanced capabilities. A business that focuses on offering these services broadly has economies of scale working in their favor, and will already have these utilities in their toolbox. They have graphic designers who generate custom graphics, content curators to write posts and access to actionable data to generate analytic reports for you to evaluate performance metrics.
Consistent and Regular Posts
Using a content calendar daily will keep your postings consistent and on track. Your posts will be going out regularly instead of whenever it crosses your mind, or you get around to it.
However, for a busy entrepreneur or small business owner, with a million other important tasks, this is easily managed at arm’s length by outsourcing to a vendor. The look and feel of the posts will be cohesive and on brand each time, and you will still retain control of creative direction with the need to manage every aspect. These little details take time but go a long way to establishing brand trust with your audience.
A Better Mix
Outsourcing to an expert will also give you some perspective on what the right social media mix is for your brand. Let them do the heavy lifting. They will research which platform is used most by your audience, execute a competitive analysis, and provide feedback on what works and doesn’t work within your industry. They will know the right balance between broadcasting posts and engagement posts; as well as post a mix of images, videos, articles and sales messages to increase your audience and your brand awareness.
The decision to outsource can be a difficult one. It can guarantee a professional look to your brand across all social media channels and can be less expensive than adding to head count. Creating compelling, relevant content that connects your business with existing customers, while driving new customers in the door is incredibly important, but also time-consuming. GLM Custom is here to help.
We deliver social media management packages custom tailored to fit the needs and meet the goals of our clients. Ask us to build a strategy and management plan that’s perfect for your business!
Visit us at www.glminc.com.