Can social media marketing be performed in-house?
I assume most people are aware of the fact that many companies perform their SEO in-house with their own search engine marketeers. It’s cheaper, they have more control and they get full time SEO work - whereas with an agency the time available to provide SEO services will be spread over multiple clients.
There’s a good overview of in-house SEO here.
In-house SEO makes sense, you can [try] hire someone really good who can then train someone else/a small team up to take over, or you can probably get away with a couple of mediocre in-house SEOs too. Either way it probably works out quite well, probably wise to take on board advice though.
Is it equally feasible to do social media marketing in-house?
I’ve been asked if I think it’s possible for a company to hire an SEO to help with in-house social media marketing as well as just plain SEO and I’m not honestly sure it is.
There are some high quality social media marketeers around but I think it’s a pretty rare breed at the moment.
It’s not easy to become a power user on a social network, it takes a huge investment of time.
I don’t think it’s something that is as obviously suited to in-house as general SEO. You’re more than like going to have to invest a month or two of stumbling/digging/mixxing aggressively before you will be respected enough to promote your own content successfully.
Likewise, if your social media strategy revolves around blogging you’re initially have to go and invest a substantial amount of time in building up a blog - it won’t happen over night.
Personally, I’d just hire someone to help and consult with the social media marketing and stick to general SEO with the in-house team. Obviously there is no harm with tinkering with social media you just have to be aware that it could be a while before you see any real ROI.
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January 23rd, 2008 at 7:04 am
Yes, it can. SMM is not only about being a power user yourself, it is about establishing multiple connection with power users. And once you need their help, you can reach them…
January 23rd, 2008 at 11:34 pm
hmm, I see your point, but surely it’s still better use of time (ROI wise) to just employ a freelancer/consultant who has already spent time becoming a power user / building relations with other power users?
January 25th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Hi Adam,
An interesting question you pose. I do not think it takes two months to develop power user of a social network. I would argue it takes less than 3 weeks to do so. And if you have someone working full time on it, it might even take less. As a matter of a fact some of the steps you take to create a power user can be outsourced to a cheap company in India to do. Take digg for example, you need to create an account, add friends, digg their stories regularly for about two weeks and you will get noticed.
January 29th, 2008 at 11:36 am
Now this is a very good point. I do not expect any company having an inhouse SEO with a good social media reputation right now. If they try to make their conventional SEOs use some SEO tactics out of the Web 1.0 era on the Web 2.0 social sphere they even risk a heavy backlash.
January 29th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
Hi Adam,
Some of the best search marketers in the industry work in-house and to suggest they can’t do social media is pretty naive.
Matt
January 29th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
@Matt: thanks for your opinion, it’s not so much that they can’t it’s that it might not be the most productive use of their time, unless you’re thinking about it from high level strategy development point, rather than day-to-day blogging, voting, tagging, networking etc.
@Tad: thanks for the comment and sphinn.
@Khalid: I don’t think you could become a digg power user in two weeks but I could be wrong.
January 29th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
I agree with you on this one. In my experience helping clients outsource/set-up inhouse smm, not only is it more cost-effective (increased ROI) but the timeframe of results tends to be much shorter.
“Connecting” with power-users simply is not enough - you’ve got to have someone at the helm that is an experienced power-user to keep up with many of the competitive niches out there. As more people find “the way” in SMM, that expertise becomes much more valuable.
Great Post! (As Usual)
Maria
January 29th, 2008 at 11:30 pm
Amen to that.
January 30th, 2008 at 5:00 am
Problem with the inhouse route is that there’s so much other “work related” stuff that can get thrown in your lap on a day to day basis that it can be very hard to knuckle down & get some solid articles / linkbait written.
Stu
January 30th, 2008 at 5:19 am
Adam, I guess it depends on how you define a power user.
In house work can and does produce the same quality as outside consultants. As matter of a fact, an in house person can generate higher ROI since cost is usually a lot lower.
January 30th, 2008 at 11:17 am
Adam, if I understand your point correctly, you’re speaking more about how cost effective it is to deal with Social Media in-house.
Obviously, as you suggest it will take a reasonable amount of time to gain the level of influence that a seasoned blogger, or contributor to a particular social site might have. However, I would suggest that in some ways it’s imperative that a company takes the time and effort to do this themselves in order to truly understand the market.
Much is made of social media, and whilst it undoubtedly has it’s place; the ROI is by it’s very nature unreliable, as some submitted articles will ‘tip’ and become popular, and some will sink without trace.
I would suggest that whilst out-sourcing this type of activity might yield results more quickly, by bringing it in-house the company will have a better understanding of the processes involved; and inherently an individual employed by a company will more committed to a brand than an agency who has multiple clients to look after.
June 11th, 2008 at 1:19 am
As you say its largely about building the profiles and dripping in the links. There are tools that can help with this, but a lot of these sites are already syndicated and they can be hard to break into. I would outsource it, unless you can produce content that actually deserves (and gets) traffic from these sites on merrit… as opposed to spamming.