Can You Really Outsource A Social Media Strategy?

The foundation of social media involves the interaction, engagement, and discussion with people using user-generated video, audio, and text through blogs, wikis, social content sharing sites, and video hosting sites.

With that being said I ask…Is it possible to outsource your social media strategy?

I always found it was a good debate to understand how social media companies are able to manage a clients entire social media campaign. How is this possible when the entire point of social media is to communicate with people with similar interests on a personal level?

MarketingSherpa’s 2009 Social Media & PR Benchmark Guide says that 76% of marketing and PR professionals “agree” or “strongly agree” that social media marketing is changing the way their organizations communicate. They also report that the two most significant barriers to social media adoption were “lack of knowledgable staff” and “inability to measure ROI”. Not surprisingly, agencies/consultants specializing in social media marketing and PR are viewed as more effective at planning and execution than either in-house staff or general purpose agencies.

“To be truly effective you have to “live inside the walls”. You have to know how to engage with your customer and most importantly you have to have a content strategy that involves not just one goal but multiple goals. Its not about outsourcing the execution, however, you can outsource the strategy.”
– Jeremy Smith, CEO of Twine Interactive

The Problems with Outsourcing Social Media

The outsourcing company does not understand your industry inside and out
They are not entrenched in the business on a daily basis
They are unable to generate content that is 100% authentic and valuable since they are not experts in a particular industry
How can an account manager effectively manage multiple social media campaigns without consuming a great deal of their day
Part of social media is meeting the people you connect with at conferences, meetups, functions, etc…

Aspects where a Social Media Company can Provide Value

Layout a detailed, long-term social media strategy/roadmap
Include client resources, time, and money allocated to the strategy
Include where the client should interact with people (sites, off-line engagements)
Include what clients should create to support their social media efforts (blog, whitepapers, webinar, Q&A, forums)
Include when and how often you should engage in each engagement
Include how to engage in the areas outlined in the strategy (best practices, tips, resources, tools)
Include a rough estimate of ROI (timeframe, cost/return analysis, expectations)
Include some measurement for success (web analytics, phone tracking, rss subscribers, downloads, brand awareness)

At some point, the role of the social media company is to provide the roadmap and knowledge needed to the client, so that they are able to effectively engage with people via these social content sharing outlets. But in my personal opinion it is extremely difficult to run an effective social media strategy without the clients support and willingness to want to engage with people.

For any social media experts out there, what are your thoughts? Do you feel that the actual engagement aspect of the strategy falls on the client?