We previously weighed the heavy customer retention and online sales advantage of companies with social media marketing strategies versus brands that have yet to establish their social network presence.

Before, we inferred that a brand’s online presence is not truly complete without social network penetration. Yes, building an e-commerce site where your consumers can make purchases and track orders is a good start, but it may no longer be enough in today’s technology-driven world where market concentration is getting more and more diverse.

Marketing approach

That’s why businesses are focusing their branding and marketing strategies on social networking sites to approach and engage with their customers on a more personal level. But this may be too much of a chore for some companies with many things on their hands other than site-specific marketing. And this is where outsourcing enters the scene.

By outsourcing your social media marketing tasks, you get the help of Internet marketing experts in expanding and retaining your online consumer base. But how can you be sure that your brand’s message will be relayed and that your target demographic will be reached by an outside party? Assure yourself by setting the following straight with your service vendor:

Before giving a third party your Twitter or Facebook account details, keep in mind that they will not just be handling your account; they will do the thinking, talking, and replying to people on your brand’s behalf on a public platform. So don’t just get anyone to represent your brand online. Get someone you can trust. Look at their portfolio, check out the accounts they handle, and get testimonials from their past clients.

But even if a different entity is the one interacting with your online following, your brand’s image and voice should still be embodied in every post they make.

Marketing platform

Of course they won’t be able to respond to queries or fix problems with accuracy if they have little knowledge about your brand. So let them in on policies, strategies, and other necessary information that would help them execute customer service and marketing the way you do. However, if you’re uncomfortable about divulging company data, you may try the “setup only” approach.

With this approach, your outsourced social media team will be responsible for the initial setup and then you take care of the rest. They will configure your profile, its design, or management tool, but you will be the one who will come up with posts and respond to queries. Alternatively, an outside staff may do the posting, but the content will be conceptualized and developed by you. In this kind of setting, communication and monitoring between you and the third party service provider should be constant to ensure their actions are consistent with your marketing strategies and brand’s vision.

Concentrate your campaign on the site that your consumers frequent. Where are these? The popular choices could be Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube, but your target niche may be someplace else.

While it pays to be simultaneously present in a variety of social networking sites, you may be wasting your time campaigning on the wrong platform. You may be making the most share-worthy posts on Google+, but your market is all on Instagram. To prevent this from happening, pulse your consumer base to know where they spend time the most.

After determining the social networks to dominate, map out the strategy for each site. Should you integrate posts on every channel, or should every post be tailored for the site it will end up in? Integration is a good way to go because it saves time, but some posts on one site may not be as effective in another. Thus, you may want to make text announcements exclusive on Facebook while product previews and other visual teasers are placed on Instagram or Pinterest.

Social media marketing is perhaps today’s most effective way to reach customers. It can be difficult to manage on your own, so consider outsourcing to get the most out of the Internet and the wide range if virtually free marketing tools available there.