I was directed to your blog by a tweet from Mack Collier, so thanks to you and Mack for my being here.

I think the points you make go well beyond property management, of course. And I agree with you completely that there’s no one-size-fits-all answer here, but the common sense approach says a combination of outsourcing and client participation will usually be the right path.

There is a myth going around that social media is easy and simple: Listen, converse and be happy. That’s fine in theory, but in practice it can be alarmingly complex to engage in social media, especially for large, multi-regional, multi-brand marketers. The complexity has nothing to do with technology. (Social media tech IS simple.) It has to do with what to say to whom on what platform and when…. What do I respond to and what do I ignore? What stories do I tell and how? And so on. (We’re at work on an eBook on this topic, so stay tuned.)

At my agency, Story (http://www.storyworldwide.com), we see the core of social media as a challenge in editorial organization and execution. As Clay Shirky has said, social media is publishing — real-time publishing. The complexity comes from conducting hundreds of conversations while being consistent, attentive, informative and engaging.

So we endorse outsourcing for all the reasons you have mentioned and for the additional reason that not many marketers understand how to engage in real-time publishing or have the time or editorial skills to pull it off. But we also endorse pushing clients (hard, if necessary) to get personally involved as much as they can. This is the winning combination, I think.

Kirk

-Jackie

It depends on so many factors, but when a company doesn’t have the manpower to refresh strategies, appropriately maintain their presence, craft new tactics, and be social, I wind up in a bind that I can frequently resolve with a marketing intern and a retainer that incents the company to learn the ropes.

@Tom – I think it would be a good thing to bring the efforts in house over time. The benefits would include authenticity, a better understanding of the customers/products/services and of course the financial savings. It might be a good idea to keep the consultants number for a quarterly review of the status of the strategy.

@Tish – I respect your position. I think it all depends on the needs of the organization’s audience. Some companies are capable of utilizing internal resources or hiring for social media… while some are still struggling with their SEO and email marketing initiatives. I find your blog very interesting and will continue to follow your thoughts.

being one of those “social media purists” I err on the side of wanting to teach a company how to manage their social media without me. However, what a company needs me for, if not to do the social media for them, is to give them information on the changes going on in social media. Their social media “doer” might be too overloaded to keep up with the latest updates to how Facebook is doing things. A company’s blogger or compliance department might not have the time to get into the details of the new FTC regulations. So, while i”m not doing the direct social media work *for* them, I am keeping them up with the changes that they don’t have time for. That’s where I see my job and my value in social media consulting.

But I think we consultants sometimes send companies mixed signals; we tell them that they should ‘just do it!’ when it comes to social media, and speak in their own voice, then we wonder why they won’t hire us! Hello! If we tell them not to outsource and that they should do it themselves, what do they need us for?