Is Social Media Free? Part II

I wrote last week about the true cost of social media. I do not believe social media is free, but I continue to read articles stating that this is a free or extremely inexpensive form of advertising.

Interestingly enough, the Wall Street Journal had an article yesterday titled "Firms Get a Hand With Twitter, Facebook: Entrepeneurs Hire Consultants to Promote Business on Social-Media Sites, but the Extra Cost Is Big Question". This is a different spin then I took, choosing to focus on outsourcing the social media option, but many of the points regarding the cost of social media were very similar.

I think this is a good read for anyone just starting to think about social media. There are a couple of key points that the article brought to my mind. First, most value from social media will be derived through relationships that are built and this requires real conversations, relationship building and contributing to the users experience on the social media site. Second, in order for this to happen you must spend the time to know what people are expecting to get out of each site and how you or your business fits into that experience.

The WSJ article offers up some social media consultants to contact, with prices ranging from $450 a month to much, much higher. Is that price worth the benefits? In order to figure that out you will probably need to answer a couple of other questions first.

To what extent would you like to be using social media? If you just want a presence without actively participating then you should be able to handle that without outsourcing. Contrary to some beliefs, social media is very easy to learn once you get over the fear of new medium and just dive in. If you are looking to become engaged in communities and play an active role on each site then you will need to evaluate how much time that may take. Depending on the time you can either take on the task with your current resources, hire a social media marketer or outsource.

Will the consultant represent you in the way that you would like? This may be the biggest issue I see and the hardest to measure. You know exactly what you are looking to communicate and how, but you have gained that knowledge through years of experience. How can you convey this to a consultant and make sure the messages being posted on social media sites fits with the rest of your marketing communication? If you do decide to outsource, you will still need to make sure you are staying on top of what is being communicated and make sure you set up expecations and measurement metrics going in. Don't make the mistake of underestimating the damage a poor consultant can do by putting out the wrong message or appearing to be spammers on the social media site.

Good luck in your ventures into the world of social media. I look forward to hearing plenty of success stories.