Should I outsource my social media presence?

This article first appeared on December 21st, 2011.

Is it ever a good idea to get a third party to build my Facebook/Twitter presence, or should I do it all myself?

First, consider if it’s worth opening and running an account or not. Some niches don’t respond that well to social media, such as funerals and cigarettes.

People don’t really want to socialise around these things and talk about them openly or positively.

The “sin” products have always been a little bit more discussed in private.

Ask yourself: “Is my product or service something people would be interested in discussing at the pub?”

• If it’s not: Perhaps consider other less time consuming channels like search engine marketing.

• If it is: Consider pushing into social media some more. If your niche is responsive to social media then it might be worth outsourcing it and buying the extra time to make it work.

What are you going to need to be successful:

• Large amount of time commitment to get it to actually work. Social media is one of the most time intensive things to get started.

  You have to be social all of the time. That is like going to the pub every day of the week and talking to everyone there. Think like a politician trying to campaign in an area and become “socially popular”.

• The best social media accounts are genuine and transparent. You need to be open and honest.

If you don’t have the time to commit you could outsource it, the only problem is that it won’t be very transparent. You might want to make the analysis as to whether it’s worth you doing it.

Great examples of social media profiles in Australia that work for start-ups:

• Steve Sammartino is a lover of start-ups and is very active on Twitter. He posts great updates and insightful pieces and lives and breathes start-ups.

• Brainmates is a product management and development company and tweet all about product development. They have marketed their conference recently and do a great job of thought leadership in the product development space.

• Crust Pizza are always active and their customer base responds really positively.

• There are loads of beer and consumer products facebook accounts that are active as well.

• Here are the top 24 social media superheroes in Australia that you might want to follow to see how they have become popular and figure out what is their secret sauce.

The sites you should focus on:

• Facebook – This is the big social media platform in Australia. There are over 7.5 million Australians on Facebook and they spend over 30% of their internet time on Facebook. This would be the best place to start.

• Twitter – This has a slightly more tech focused audience but is always growing. TV shows are pushing this in a big way right now.

• Linkedin – This is more of a business orientated area and would be best if you want to target Business to Business style customers.