6 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Outsource Your Social Media Presence

If you are just starting on your social media journey, you may be wondering if you should outsource it to an external party who knows all the ins and outs of this malarky. Or you might have a social media presence already, but finding it is taking too much time and so are considering other options including outsourcing. Or maybe your team is growing and you want to evaluate a different operating model such as using an agency or consultancy.

Here are 6 reasons why you shouldn't outsource your social media presence:

1. No-one knows your business like you do (or your team).  On social media, the community can throw all kinds of curve balls at you. If these need to be filtered by someone external, sent to you for a response, you craft a suitable reply, send it back, it gets reworded, then finally it is posted on Facebook, Twitter or your blog.... well you get the idea. The moment will have passed and depending on the situation either your reply will seem very out of context or you'll have a 'situation' on your hands. Your social media community management team needs to know and understand your community - so they instinctively know what is relevant and useful - and what is not.

2. There's no substitute for informal communication - or what is also known as the office grapevine. A conversation exchanged at the coffee machine about something that is happening elsewhere in the organisation or with your customers, may uncover a great opportunity to share that story on your social channels. No meeting with external parties to be arranged, no brief to be written. You can be faster and more timely when you use an inhouse team, and social media is all about timeliness.

3. Social media platforms change more frequently than some people change their underpants. Facebook, Twitter and Google+ are constantly making changes (often without warning) which will affect how you engage with your community. You need to have someone that is knee deep in how your posts look after platform changes are made, and understands what that means for you - they must be experts in how Facebook EdgeRank works for your community. If you are using an external party, chances are they won't understand this to the same depth as someone from inside your organisation who is living and breathing this each and every day.

4. The day your organisation has a crisis - whether it be industry related, a natural disaster, a technology meltdown or supply interruption that impacts your customers - this will be the day that you find out you need an inhouse team. They will need to be able to listen for any issues bubbling up on social media that could be quickly headed off, provide updates to the community about the situation at hand, and rapidly respond to questions that are posted. Remember that in all likelihood your phones will be ringing off the hook and customers wont have the patience to wait in a call queue - they'll just write on your Facebook Wall or tweet your Twitter account for everyone to see. Take a look at the Qantas Facebook page after their planes were grounded worldwide to get a feel for what might happen.

5. Do you want someone else having conversations with your customers? If you've encountered an organisation that outsources its Call Centre to another company, then you'll know how that feels when you are at the end of it. If your community takes the time and effort to communicate with your brand, they will feel cheated if they find out its not actually your brand that is responding. At the most basic level, it's not honest or transparent and that doesn't go down well on social media.

6. A good community manager is worth their weight in gold. They will know who your brand advocates and influencers REALLY are, because they talk to these people each and every day. They wont be people picked out of a report generated by some software tool based on their follower numbers or their Klout score, they will be the ones who go in to bat for you whenever someone in the community asks about your brand. A good community manager will be able to tell you off the top of their head who your top 5 influencers or brand advocates are, and they will have a relationship with them. Would the same apply for an external party?

Don't get me wrong though, I'm not saying that external parties such as a social media consultancy or agencies can't add value - not at all. Some of my favourite people fall into those categories and I respect their opinions and expertise. Reaching out to them is a good way of providing some third party weight to an internal decision making point, or for getting a wider view of the industry or trends when you are developing your strategy. They can be a powerhouse when working with you on a defined piece of work, or as part of a wider multi channel campaign.

But there is no substitute for a team that knows and understands your organisation, your customers and your products or services and is passionate about your brand. This is especially true when it comes to 2 way communication with your customers. These people are your brand storytellers. Embrace them if you can



Tweet

5 Tips For Using The New Facebook Page Insights

Facebook released their new Page Insights last week which contains a lolly shop of goodies for Facebook admins who are managing a brand Page. The focus is quite clearly and squarely on Engagement with a capital E which is a good move away from measuring just the number of Page Likes - a common yet misleading metric in the past.

Tip 1: Here is the Facebook Insights Guide. Read it. 

Tip 2: Track the People Talking About metric for your brand and your competitors to see how engagement levels fluctuate.
One of the most obvious changes is displaying the number of people who are 'talking about' your page. Its like Klout for brand Pages!

Facebook describes this metric as "How many people are actually talking about your brand or company to their Facebook friends."
It is broken down to each individual post and includes everyone who:
• Liked your Page
• Liked, commented on, or shared your Page post
• Answered a Question you’ve asked
• Responded to your event
• Mentioned your Page
• Tagged your Page in a photo
• Checked in or recommended your Place

Note that this does not include Wall Posts by anyone other than the brand. Data from 19th July 2011 is available on the new Page Insights.


Tip 3: Check if your ads are even working using the Total Reach analysis

The Total Reach metric shows the number of unique people who have seen your post, broken down by Organic, Paid and Viral reach for your post. This will help you track whether your paid advertising is working. For example, if you are getting a high paid reach on a post (via Sponsored Page Post or Sponsored Stories) but your other engagement metrics (below) are not improving, then your ads are probably not targeting the right audience, or are not interesting or relevant enough to that audience..... and so they just don't click on the post. Its unfortunate that the scale on the graph can make your viral statistics seem very low - make sure you hover over the purple viral bar to see how many times a friend of one of your Fans saw your post as a result of the Fan liking, commenting or sharing your post.


The metric Engaged Users is important and tells you the unique number of people have clicked anywhere on your post  -  whether it was playing a video, viewing the full size of a photo, clicking a link, sharing your post, commenting or liking it, clicking on people's names or the timestamp.

The section of this Engaged Users pie called Stories Generated is further broken down in a second metric called Talking About This. This is the number of times your post received likes, comments, shares, event RSVPs or had Questions answered. The total of this number over the past 7 days is the metric visible to everyone on your Page. If you are wondering why the number on your page doesn't add to the total of the posts showing in the past 7 days - it may be due to Questions which are not displayed (but appear in your export data).

Tip 4: Find out where your Likes are coming from.

Under the Fans tab of the Page Insights you can see further analysis of  who your Fans are including age, gender and country. This graph will show you where your Page Likes are coming from (eg via the Newsfeed, on a mobile phone, on your website or elsewhere)

Tip 5: Check who is actually talking about your page. 
You might have one age demographic which dominates your Page Fans, however they may not actually be the age or gender demographic who are engaging with your posts. Find out who is most engaged on your page on the Talking About tab of Page Insights - you might be surprised.



Lastly, here is a quick snapshot of some of the Talking About metrics for a selection of Facebook Pages you might be familiar with - makes interesting reading. Also check these stats again in a few weeks to see how these metrics change over time.

Tweet

What You Need To Know About Facebook's Changes To Brand Pages

Facebook has been making a load of changes recently, with the introduction of the Facebook Timeline and Ticker into personal pages, plus the option to Subscribe to a personal page.

But what about the brands on Facebook? When do they get some Zuck-love?

Well, it looks as though Facebook are rolling out a number of changes to brand pages:

Discussion threads - to be filed under R for Rubbish
Discussion threads are a feature that have been long overdue for a rehaul. They were are a hangover from the early days of Facebook brand pages - back in the day when you could 'Fan Us on Facebook' (anyone remember those?).

However, unlike Wall posts, there were no notifications for the Discussion threads meaning Facebook admins had to manually check the threads to see if new comments had been posted or new threads started. The benefit of discussion thread was that they didn't get lost in the sea of posts on the main Wall and therefore they had a longer shelf life than your average post (and could continue on for months). But engagement on them was low, probably because threads didn't post into the NewsFeed the way Wall posts do.

Facebook has decided to remove them from 31 October 2011 as Wall posts and comments are the best way to engage your community.

Can't wait.

There isn't an easy way to export the discussion threads, but some brands may want to investigate this if they have important content captured in them.


Photos
A new format for multiple photos mirrors the layout in personal profile Timeline photos, showing 3 images like this post from Rugby World Cup:

Also, they are getting bigger in your stream and Ticker. You might have already noticed that when your Friends post photos they are much bigger in your stream? Well, this may be being rolled out to brands too - here's one from Air New Zealand as an example where the photo is noticeably larger than previously.

Top Stories and Recent Stories
There is a lot of strange comings and goings with your Newsfeed now - some stories are popping up as Recent Stories, some as Top Stories, and most importantly.... some not at all. Read about how Edgerank has changed and what this means for your NewsFeed optimisation.


Keep posted for more developments. It is an exciting time for brands on Facebook and a great opportunity to capitalise on some of the changes and be a first mover.

Tweet

Pics and Video from Rugby World Cup 2011 Opening Ceremony

Amazing light show by the crowd - countdown to the opening of the Rugby World Cup ceremony

Eden Park scrubs up well

Opening ceremony

Crowd shot as the NZ National Anthem is sung at the RWC opening ceremony

Lone fan waves his flag during the game

Try time 

Mexican wave

Tweet

The Twitter Wall

I was greeted by this Twitter Wall when I arrived at the office today.

Hilarious tweets crafted by the amazing Bhavika Rambhai.....who knows me better than I know myself.

Such an amazing wall.

Thanks so much doll xx

Tweet

Could You Wake Up Tomorrow And Find Your Facebook Page Deleted?

Image source: http://www.freeiconsweb.com/

Imagine if you woke up one morning and found your entire Facebook Page had been deleted. All those followers, posts, images.... gone. Well it could happen and here is why. Facebook doesn't provide advanced permissions for Facebook admins. Once you are an admin you can do everything to the Facebook Page, just as all the admins can. Various levels of access and security would be great (Mark - are you listening?) because until this exists, there is a certain amount of risk involved with being a Facebook admin.

To become an admin of a Facebook page, you use your own personal Facebook profile. Which means if you get your password hacked, or if someone uses a computer or phone where your password is cached, they can get into the Facebook Page and maliciously delete posts, upload images, post unauthorised content - or even delete the other admins or the entire Page if they have your password.

If you are on Twitter you will know how much DM spam has been doing the rounds lately. This is from people who have clicked a link and entered their password into a fake site. So.... if your Facebook password is the same as your Twitter password then some of you should be feeling very uncomfortable right now if you are also Facebook Page admins.

To reduce this risk there are a few options.

1. Create a personal Facebook profile that is used only for administering the Facebook Page. Unfortunately this is against the Facebook Terms of Use which specify only one profile per actual living and breathing person, so if you want to run that gauntlet hoping Facebook wont find out then you are more game than me.

2. Limit the number of admins to your page to as few as possible and put the fear of God into them. The less admins, the less risk.

3. Encourage all your Facebook admins to amend their security settings to alert them via txt or email when their profile logs onto Facebook from an unknown source.

If you are really nervy about it, you can require a security code to be entered for every logon - depending on how often you log on, this might be a strong security measure or a real pain in the... errr... neck.

4. Turn on https browsing if you use any public wifi.

5. Regularly check any Active Sessions running elsewhere (ie where you are still logged into Facebook) and End them.

All of these settings can be accessed via Account Settings > Security on your personal Facebook profile.

Get busy!

Tweet

Will The New LinkedIn iPhone & Andriod App Put You In Time Out?

LinkedIn recently released an updated version of their iPhone app (version 4), Android app and a new HTML5 website. It's a nice looking app, and is a great improvement on the previous iPhone version. This has been driven by the mobile usage of their social network which has increased 400% each year. The home screen is divided up into 4 main areas: your profile, updates from your network, groups you have joined and your inbox.


Here's the launch video showing the features and user interface of the new version.

One drawback is the lack of integration with your iPhone contacts which would be useful. You also can't see who has looked at your profile as you can on the full website - and lets face it, this is the page most frequently checked by everyone on LinkedIn.

One other important point to keep in mind is that when you connect with someone using the iPhone app, you are not given the opportunity to either specify how you know that person, or to insert a personalised message. The invitation is sent with the boiler plate template wording which says " XXXX has indicated you are a Friend. I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn." This means you can't indicate whether you worked together, attended the same university previously, or if you met them at a recent conference or through a mutual connection. 


No biggie, right? Well actually it might be. There is a little known limitation within LinkedIn where if 5 people indicate 'I Don't Know This Person', then you will not be able to send any further connection invitations without knowing the email address of the person you are connecting with. There are also a limited (undisclosed) number of invitations you can send as a 'Friend':

From the LinkedIn Help Centre:  

You've reached the limit of invitations you can send without email addresses to people you've identified as a Friend during the invitation process.

So..... using the smartphone app to send connection invitations may push you closer to this mysterious limit and one day you could find you need an email address for any future connections to your profile.

Or your invitation could be rejected using 'Do Not Know' (as you are probably not a Friend -with a capital F- of the person you are connecting with) and after 5 strikes, you will be put in LinkedIn time out.

Food for thought.

Tweet