If you’ve looked at the size of the task and weren’t inebriated at the time, then outsourcing your social media marketing, or at least portions of it, is really the only sane solution to cover the numerous items that need to be performed on a regular basis.

Whether you choose to outsource it to your staff, freelancers or a social media marketing services firm, you need to be very clear with all concerned as to just what you want from this, to avoid wasting time and money.

Let’s take a quick inventory of all the things you may want to have outsourced, and the best way to go about it.

Content – If you have articles, blog posts, social posts or any other type of market-specific content written, you’ll want to be very careful as to who produces it and how well. If they are writing for you main site, obviously you need this to be top-notch. One popular way to do that these days is to have “guest bloggers”; others you have developed relationship with in your field whom you trust and are satisfied with the caliber of their writing, and you trade services, or in exchange for links.

If the writing is for a feeder site, blog, or for some other microblogging platform, then it may not be as crucial, particularly if your name is not on it. Still, it’s a best practice not to scrimp on your content writers as they represent your site, products and you to the world! You can outsource this type of work outside the US very cheaply, but you’re likely to notice, as will your visitors.

Site Building – If you have someone building web properties for you such as Squidoo lenses, Hubpages, Blogs this can be done fairly easily by posting your needs in places like Elance, Sitepoint or any of the other webmaster hangouts. Make sure you get what you want; for instance if you want certain keywords to appear as titles, URLs, links etc., make sure they are diligent about doing this. Also, if you are having them construct an interlinked network for you, do yourself a favor and make sure they know how to do that as you want it.

Link Building – Outsourcing having someone build links for you is one of the best uses of outsourcing, as it will have a direct positive effect on your site. If it’s done correctly, that is! Whether you task someone to do blog comments, social posts, social bookmarking or networking or article submissions, make sure they not only know how to code your links correctly for the sites that require HTML, but also that they understand how to vary your anchor text, collect RSS feeds, and ping your pages.

Social Bookmarking & Networking – These require special attention, as you not only don’t want to be accused of spamming any of these sites; you want to make it as effective as possible. Making sure not to overdo, collect RSS feeds, link-dropping where appropriate, trying to hold coherent conversations within your niche if called for; these are just some of the things you’ll want your outsourcer to pay attention to.

RSS Feeds and Videos – These are great areas to outsource as they take so much of your valuable time. There is software available out there that will greatly speed things up, and you can provide this to your staff or outsourcer.

Hiring A Social Media Marketing Services Firm - If you don’t have the time to manage this all yourself and you’d just like to get it done, then this may be your best option. Typically they will have all the pieces in place, and you won’t have to do much except provide them with the site or sites you like promoted, and a few other pertinent pieces of information, such as keywords, social accounts you may already have, and preferences etc. A good social media marketing service can save you scads of time and work, and put your site on the map.

However you end up doing it, outsourcing your social media marketing just makes sense!

Let’s look at some of the pros and cons of outsourcing your social media marketing (or any tasks, for that matter!) versus the sometimes irresistible pull to do it all yourself.

I’ve done and do both, and there are several factors at play here. If you’re just a total control freak, then no one will meet your expectations, and you need to know that going in. There comes a time though, if you truly want to grow your business you need to consider outsourcing, or perhaps cloning! 

Outsourcing - The Pros

• You can instantly scale your business. You now have given yourself more time to do the things that are necessary to move your business to the next level because you’re no longer tied down doing the manual labor. Just because it’s on the internet doesn’t mean it’s not time-consuming, mind-warping work. Listen, if you had a landscaping business, you might start out doing some or all of the work, but the “green ceiling” would soon become very apparent! There is no difference online.
• It will dramatically improve the  speed of delivery on projects, as well as customer satisfaction. You’ll be exerting total strategic control of the projects, without having to physically do them. Your existing clients will be happier, and you’ll be able to take on more of them. 
• By outsourcing you’ll be able to take advantage of people who you hire that have an area of expertise or specialty that you may not have, thus improving the quality of your site or service.
• By sticking your head out of the rabbit hole, you will be meeting new people, some of whom may end up being a great ally or partner down the road. You just never know. (Well, sometimes you do!)
• Outsourcing will enable you to take tactical advantage of your competitors by not only increasing your own quality of service and amount of work you’re doing, but eventually your site will be outranking theirs due simply to the amount of content, links and attention that are being showered on it.

Cons Of Outsourcing

• Now and then the quality won’t meet your standards, and you’ll either have to reassign the task or fix it yourself. Sometimes this will cost you money. It’s the cost of freeing up your valuable time, (which I hope is more than you are paying your outsourcers!) As time goes on, however, this happens less frequently as your list of outsourcers grows larger and more dependable.
• You won’t have total control. This can be a hard thing to give up. It was for me. You know you can do it better, and you may very well be right! You just have to decide what’s more important to you; your time or your quest for perfection. 
• You actually have to pay people. In my mind this is a pro, but I know that many people have a problem with this initially. It’s actually sort of a right of passage for your business, as you’re now able to play with the big dogs. Don’t be stingy either! If you opt for the lowest price point out there, you will generally get the lowest quality and dependability. The highest prices may not be worth it it either. Decide on a number that will afford you the best quality and time value for investment and use this as a starting point, You can always add more later.

Social media marketing is a venture ripe for outsourcing, as the tasks of making social posts, blog posts, and creating content take up valuable time. Social marketing is also a vast and confusing landscape of sites and networks, and just keeping up with who’s who can be a challenge.  It’s a shifting playing field, with numerous player substitutions every day. Give this some thought before you start you next social media marketing campaign.