Every business owner has heard about the importance of social media. But while it’s easy to agree that a social media presence is a good thing, it’s another thing to justify bringing in a dedicated social media professional. Can any tech-savvy business owner handle the company’s social media accounts? Or is it worth it to hire a BPO company to take over?
There’s a lot more to effective social media than meets the eye, which is why the most successful companies outsource essential functions like social media. Here are four reasons you should use a BPO to manage your social media.
1. Social Media Isn’t Optional in Growing Your Company
Let’s get one thing clear: no modern business-to-consumer (B2C) company can hope to succeed without some type of social media presence. Whether you’re starting a new franchise or running an established business, social media is the most effective way to reach new people and establish trust with your customer base.
Why use social media when your business can still advertise on other media like TV, radio, and print? In the few years since social media platforms have been around, consumers have drastically evolved their expectations around how they should interact with a business. Not only do people want immediate access to new content, but they also want the ability to directly engage with the business and other customers.
Traditional advertising media can’t offer these things, and that’s why every business should take social media seriously — or risk losing to competitors who can connect better with customers. This is why more and more companies are outsourcing social media in addition to other common services like human resources and customer service.
But while social media is relatively new, a new generation of marketing professionals has developed a unique skill set to help companies use their social media platforms effectively. This brings us to our next point: social media is best handled by experts.
2. Social Media Management is a Professional Job
Social media is often underestimated as something anyone can handle. After all, when you already know how to manage your own social media profile, managing a business account is a piece of cake, right?
Nothing could be further from the truth. Developing a strong social media presence and building a base of loyal followers takes patience and professional know how. For example, did you know that there’s an optimal time of the week and even time of day to post on social media? Or that you should change your social media content for each channel, even when you’re posting about the same topic or event?
Social media marketing looks easy, but there’s a lot of thought and planning behind each post. Social media managers already know what the company will be posting, sometimes weeks ahead of time. A good social media professional can even help you hone your social media strategy and set meaningful goals for your marketing campaigns.
So, how should a workplace leader go about hiring a social media manager when they don’t know about professional social media? One option is to put out an ad, interview candidates, and hope that you asked the right questions before making a decision. Or, you can take the risk out of the process and ask a BPO company to pick the best person from their own team.
And when you take into account the level of service you get, a BPO is worth the cost, especially when it comes to flexibility of service.
3. Social Media Isn’t Always a Full-Time Job — Until It Is
While effective social media marketing demands a professional touch and quick action, the other side of the coin is that most small businesses don’t need someone to manage the company’s social media accounts all day. That leaves workplace leaders with two options: hire a full-time social media manager and absorb the cost, or hire a part-timer to come to the office or work remotely a few days a week to manage your posts.
At first glance, the choice seems obvious. Why hire a full-time social media manager when you only need a few hours each week to create and post content? That line of reasoning works when everything is running smoothly. But when things go really well or really badly, the limitations of a part-time hire become painfully clear.
Picture this: your latest social media post has been successful beyond your wildest dreams. People love it — they’re commenting like crazy and want to hear from you. Opportunities like this don’t come often, and you know it’s important to take advantage of all the positive attention.
The only problem? Your part-time social media manager has used up their hours for the week and needs to focus on another client right now. By the time they’re working for you again next week, it’ll be too late.
Or imagine the opposite situation: A recent social media post you thought would go well is actually upsetting quite a few customers. As the complaints start rolling in, what should you do? If you have to wait until the following week to sort things out, you risk alienating your most loyal customers and destroying the trust you worked so hard to build.
When you need ongoing professional support for your business but can’t justify hiring someone full-time, where’s the best place to go? You guessed it: BPO. Just like with other services, a BPO company can provide you with the level of professional social media attention that you need, when you need it — helping your company grow and maintain the brand.
But social media is about more than just posting and responding. Without the right analysis tools, there’s no way to know how well your social media campaign is performing.
BPOs Companies Have the Right Social Media Measuring Tools
It’s one thing to post great content, but how do you know if your social media campaign is meeting the targets you set? Social media managers must not only be excellent front-end communicators, but they must also have the right tools and software available so that they can measure what your business is doing right on social media and where there’s room for improvement.
When you hire a part-time employee, you’re still responsible for providing the tools they’ll need for the job, including social media analysis tools and software. Most social media platforms provide limited analysis tools for free, but if you want the best insights into your social media presence, you’ll need to pay for the premium tools. All of a sudden, choosing to hire your own part-time social media manager won’t be as cheap as you imagined it to be.
If you want to take advantage of the best available social media analysis tools, then it makes sense to work with a BPO company. Since these companies specialize in social media marketing, you know they’ll always have access to the most current tools and platforms as a standard part of the service.
When you let a BPO company manage your social media, you can be sure that they’ll give you the most accurate and relevant information about how your campaign is doing — allowing you to focus on being an effective workplace leader.
Propel Your Company with Great Social Media
No small business can do it all. There simply aren’t enough resources to justify hiring full-time employees to manage all the back-end tasks you need to run your company. Confie’s BPO solutions can help business owners get the support they need so that they can focus on what’s important: serving their customers. Get in touch with us today to learn more, or give us a call at (714) 252 2500.
