There’s no reason to outsource social media account oversight to agencies who charge thousands a month. On the other side of the experience spectrum: Do you want to pay a 23 year old for your messaging when foot-in-mouth errors are likely? I am a Twitter account manager as part of my client work, and sometimes get frowns from people who think the work is easily done by interns or recent college graduates.
Ideally, a young person could get approval before Tweets are shared, but we all know Twitter time moves in nano-seconds, too fast to wait for second opinions. What if a recent hire leaves your company on bad terms? They may not be as concerned about bad-mouthing you on the very social channels they ran for you. A freelance Twitter professional dedicated to this work would destroy his or her reputation by using social networks to disparage a former client.
I can manage Twitter accounts, bring my 4+ years of social media and online community management experience to the table, as well as two decades of marketing experience— in ¼ the time a cautious, green recent grad has to spend. This makes it affordable.
Freelance or in-house? Recent college grad or seasoned pro? Who’s going t0 run your Twitter account?
As for agencies and social media marketing companies, they are often cost prohibitive. We all know marketing value is not 100% measurable and PR agencies, for example, have their clients trust when pitching services. There are many ways to manage Twitter and other social media accounts, but most marketing directors and VPs don’t have time to learn best practices for this new communication channel. The perceived value is often based on trusting their agency relationships with a high price tag for this new service.
