Just like other functions in a business, if its not your core area of expertise, it's best to stay strategic and outsource tactical functions.  Outsourcing accounting or bookkeeping is very similar in that it helps the business get the information required to make informed strategic decisions.

The goal of social media, of course, is to gain brand awareness and develop online leads.  And, just like sales work, it requires consistent effort to build up relationships and develop them.

Measurements of Social Media, Search Engine Results & Email Newsletters

So, the real insights come from the measurement.  On an ongoing basis, you should allow your experts to compile the results or set up your communications pieces to be measured.  The results or insights are what you need to make strategic decisions but the work of creating the reports and measuring are tactical and something you can outsource to a social media expert.  In fact, they need to do this work as well to have a sense of results and what is being done.  They can't effectively help you blog without it and they can't effectively measure your activities without being aware of the activities and the desired results.  Strategy and tactics or execution have always gone hand in hand to work together.

What Not to Outsource

Build your own network of contacts.  So, within social media that would be making connections, friends or followers.  Some portion of this relationship building will require that you invite people to connect, friend or follow you.  Seed these lists with your existing connections and gain valuable feedback and insights into how they are reacting to your social networking activites, blogs and other items.

Blogging

Some people might think that this is an area to outsource and while the content must sound like they are your words, it is a good area to outsource as well.  After all, having a sense for how people will react to your information and maintaining a brand image are not always a sales oriented communication piece.  And, all too often, we find people wanting to sell benefits or features to their email lists or social networks.  Knowing these social networking faux pas is good guidance that a strong social media person will be able to assist you to do.   This article Social Media Outsourcing, Smartsourcing— What’s the Big Deal? lends some thought to jointly developed blogs.  Part of it is that you need some optimization, tagging and seo work done to your posts because online, you are not only creating a brand awareness building communications piece but you are also speaking to the blogsphere and search engines so a social media specialist will assure you are properly tagged & keyworded as well.  More tactical tasks that should be a part of the blogging task.

Article Promotion & Backlink Building

This is a key component of social media work.  The main reason is to get great results.  Search engine marketing and promotions is an area that takes a great deal of time & effort to develop.  Again more tactical work to get improved rankings for all the blogging that is being done.  And, again, you can't be sure your measurements or reports reflect a truly effective program for your targeted intent if you're not sure that you are not properly promoting the postings. 

Email Newsletters

Now, with social media on the rise, email marketing is bigger than ever.  People still love to have relevant information delivered to them instead of having to go out and search it down regularly.  Even for the sites we love, we don't go visit them regularly to catch up on reading.  We'd typically prefer to sign up for a newsletter and have that delivered to us for our reading.  It is always doable for yourself but the nuances of having to be cautious of spam words, testing to be sure it renders well in the various email platforms can be more tactical work than people bargain.  Creating good measurable reports is an important part of the insights gained from this activity.  Even more so than any of the other mediums, this one provides us with the largest amount of insight into our readers' preferences and interests. 

If you were thinking that a social media campaign may not need just as effective an email campaign, reconsider your goals and the insights you'll need to gain strategic decisions on the stewardship of your business.