A social media strategy is critical to the success of your small business. According to a report in Cision PR Newswire, approximately 25 percent of small business owners cite social media as their most successful digital marketing tool. No other digital marketing tools received the same vote of confidence from business owners who participated in the survey.
However, maintaining an active social media presence can deprive you of time you might spend on other tasks. In addition, you may need more experience as a social media manager. If you’re unfamiliar with these platforms, mastering them could prove challenging and time-consuming.
Consider hiring a social media marketer or virtual assistant to help with your business’s social media tasks. The benefits of social media outsourcing for small business owners include:
Improving Customer Service
One of the key benefits of outsourcing social media management is ensuring that someone is on hand to address customer service issues. A McKinsey report indicates consumers increasingly use social media to contact companies with questions and basic requests.
You don’t have the time to respond to these requests yourself every time a user sends in a question through social media. With social media outsourcing for small businesses, you don’t have to. A virtual assistant or similar professional can increase your social media response time. In doing so, they’ll help your brand make a better impression on potential customers.
Staying on Top of Data
Social media is a valuable marketing tool because it provides significant data about how followers interact with your brand. Analyzing this data can help you learn more about your target audience. Leveraging these insights is key to refining a digital marketing strategy.
Compiling and sorting through all that data requires a vigilant approach. This highlights another benefit of outsourcing social media marketing. If you work with a social media marketing assistant, they can track and compile relevant data on your behalf. This makes analyzing the data and acting on it much easier.
Ensuring Consistency
A social platform doesn’t just allow a brand to engage with its followers. It also allows a brand to provide followers with valuable content. The more value you can offer your followers, the more loyal they will be.
Posting quality content regularly is another task someone else can handle on your behalf. Just remember to hire someone who takes the time to know your brand.
Posting content consistently isn’t enough. To increase brand awareness, post content that reflects a consistent brand identity. A professional offering social media outsourcing for small business owners should make sure they post often and their posts speak in the same “voice.”
This benefit of outsourcing your social media marketing ties to the previous point. The more content you post on social media, the more data you can generate regarding user engagement. The more data you generate, the more you can learn and refine your strategy.
Casting a Wide Net
A recent Forbes article indicates the average social media user currently has 8.4 social media accounts. With numerous social media platforms from which to choose, users are not restricting themselves by only creating accounts for one or two channels.
You don’t have time to manage multiple social media accounts to stay in touch with all your current and potential followers. Fortunately, social media marketing outsourcing agencies can help you find assistants with experience handling multiple accounts.
Social media professionals may also have a greater understanding of the different platforms currently available. They may help you better understand what social platforms your target audience may use most often. Their familiarity with this topic can help you determine which platforms to focus on and which should play less significant roles in your social campaigns.
Accessing Tools
You need the right tools to execute a proper social media marketing strategy. You may not have those tools on hand. However, you don’t have to purchase them yourself. Your social media marketing person or outside agency will likely have the tools and resources necessary to help you succeed.
Saving Time and Money
By now, you may be almost ready to outsource your social media. Perhaps all that’s stopping you is a question: Would it make more sense to just hire a full-time employee to handle your social media management?
The answer may be “no” if you’re a small business owner. First, social media marketing outsourcing agencies may offer a degree of flexibility and convenience that individual employees can’t offer. They may specifically be able to serve you on an as-needed basis.
Hiring a social media virtual assistant or marketer through such an agency can help you save money. Because you only have to pay for the services you need, there’s limited risk of paying someone even when they have no work to do.
A reputable agency will also vet candidates on your behalf. This saves you a lot of time. Instead of seeking qualified candidates on your own, you can instead hire help through an agency that already employs the types of experts you need.
You’ll save even more time once your assistant begins working with you. Handing over day-to-day control of your social media management to a professional allows you to grow your business more efficiently.
It may even give you more time to focus on your personal life. As a small business owner, you may naturally feel the urge to check your social media channels even when you’re not working. This can prevent you from disconnecting and may even lead to burnout. However, if you’ve hired someone to handle your social media marketing, you might feel more comfortable taking the time to step back and get actual rest. Doing so is critical to running a business successfully.
Learn More About Social Media Outsourcing for Small Businesses
These are just some of the benefits of outsourcing your social media marketing tasks. At PEAK Outsourcing, we offer outsourced social media marketing services and related services to small business owners like you. We’d be happy to discuss how we may assist you in greater detail. Get started today by calling us at 866-861-1731 or contacting us online to discuss your project.
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