I talk with owners of small businesses on a regular basis. When they find out that we offer social media services, they usually have one of two reactions. They either look guilty and mumble something about “yes, I know I should be doing something with Facebook, but I don’t know what”, as though I’m the social media police planning to fine them for going without a social media plan. Or they look enthusiastically relieved and ask a lot of questions.
So, if you own a small business or you work for a small business, and you’re tasked with the dreaded “social media” assignment, what should you do? Are you just going to look at the floor and hope the whole thing passes you by and that soon you’ll be able to go back to buying yellow page ads and wake up from this ridiculous online marketing nightmare? Or are you going to find some help?
If you need to attack the social media monster, there are three paths you can take.
1. Do It Yourself
2. Done With You
3. Done For You
Let’s say you decide to go the Do It Yourself route. This means you’re going to need to find training. Either you’ll need to attend some conferences or webinars, get some coaching, read some books or some combination of all of the above. You’ll need to come up with a plan for implementing the strategy you create in such a way that you still have time to run your business. There are tools out there that can help you with this. It can be done. But learning about social media is kind of like shaving– once you start, you’ve got to keep it up, so plan on budgeting time and money for continuing education on an ongoing basis.
Who should consider the Do It Yourself route? If you’re low on budget but have some extra time on your hands and have an interest in the social media and technology world, this may be an excellent fit for you.
What about Done With You solutions? This is more of a coaching/consulting model. You hire someone to get you started, maybe they do some of the implementation at the beginning, hold your hand along the way, continue to check in on you for at least the first 6-12 months. This person can be responsible for adjusting the strategy along the way and for keeping up with changes in the social media landscape. But you or one of your employees will be responsible for most of the heavy lifting. Long-term, implementation of the plan will fall squarely on your shoulders.
Who is a good fit for Done With You? If you have time (or staff) to handle writing regular blog posts, tweets or Facebook updates, but you don’t want to have to think too much about what to do when or if you learn best by seeing a plan modeled for you, this is a great opportunity for you. You can learn alongside someone who knows the landscape.
And, finally, Done For You. More and more business owners are finding that it is cheaper and more effective to hire a company to manage at least some aspects of their social media than to handle it in house. Let’s face it, if you hire someone, then you’re responsible for taxes, benefits and all sorts of other expenses beyond just a salary. And you don’t want to just pass off the responsibility of running a social media campaign to some already stressed assistant or salesperson. You can outsource as much of your social media campaign as you like– just make sure that you hire someone who is going to work closely with you to ensure that your company’s message, style and values are truly being represented. Keep an eye on what’s going on and make sure that you set measurable goals and check in to see if those are being met– just like you would with any other marketing strategy.
Should you find a Done For You solution? Maybe. If you go this route, it won’t take up a lot of your time. The main drawback of outsourcing your social media campaign is the expense. But if the choice is between hiring an outside company and hiring and employee, then bringing in some sort of contractor is almost always cheaper.
So, there you have it. You don’t have to panic. You just need to look at your resources and see what mix of time, money and interest you have. Then find a solution to help you move forward.
How can MantyWeb Designs help you? We offer solutions across the spectrum, from consulting to help you get started on the Do It Yourself path to Done For You services. In the coming months, we’re going to be expanding our service offerings to help you even more in this area. If you’d like to discuss how we can be of assistance, please call us or fill out our contact form.
