“I’ve Got a Guy”
“I’ve got a guy that does that.” My son jokes with me about this because it’s something I say, hypocritically in this case. Usually, when a prospect says that to me they’re referring either to an Internet Technology, (IT), professional or to someone who posts to social media accounts in addition to their main responsibilities. Today’s leading software tools integrate your website, CRM, email marketing program, social media accounts, shopping cart, POS, shipping software and more. What that means increasingly, is that you need more than an IT guy. IT is NOT social media marketing, or internet advertising, or content generation. IT is the guy that makes the hardware work. Digital Asset Management, DAM, is an acronym used to describe what we do at VOX. We make sure that the software works, complements other systems, looks good, is connected to social media accounts, captures emails, and performs the necessary functions to drive interest, business, sales, and contacts. There are multiple functions involved in this process. They include website hosting, graphic design, original content writing, video production, SEO, social media management, and reporting among others. Most everything except IT and that’s good because in most cases you already have people or companies in place that perform one or more of these functions. When you outsource your existing assets to a firm like ours you almost always save money if you are already invested in online marketing. The other “guy that does that” is often a Facebook/Instagram/Twitter poster who has additional responsibilities. As such they may not understand how Facebook’s new algorithm works, how to make Facebook integrate with other resources, or how to safeguard a website from hackers. Today using the latest tools and homegrown American talent, VOX manages all these assets for you. If you have someone who posts to Facebook for you and you’re happy with them then you should keep them. But Facebook is a huge consumer-facing resource that integrates with other tools to help you connect with your newest customers. At VOX, our job is to manage these assets for you and deliver reports that explain in no uncertain terms exactly what’s happening with your brand online. To do that we need to go behind the curtain and see the interplay between different assets. More often than not we see gaps between the assets because no one has time to manage the entire process. We identify them and then make suggestions as to how to correct them. Once approved, we make the correction and work towards improving the process. Recently, a client explained that he wanted a full breakdown of how each social media account should be managed, “step-by-step so a five year-old could understand it.” There are two major problems with that process:
- Those steps change all the time so it’s a full time job
- Why do you want staff that you hired to sell or manage posting to social media accounts?
Why pay someone not trained in social media marketing to be the “guy that does that” when you can outsource it to a professional who does it for a living. One client actually wanted to train five people with no background or interest in the client’s social media message to post to Instagram. The fact is if the “guy that does that” actually “does that” then we wouldn’t be working with the client to begin with. You can see this in business as automation begins to replace workers. Outsourcing just makes sense provided your vendor is available and effective. The economies of scale allow virtually any group, individual or business, to manage their presence online today and look like a Fortune 500 company for a nominal fee. A fee less than a full time dedicated employee and with better results. The question the client has to ask themselves is, “Do you want to be in the internet marketing business or do you want to be in your business?”
