Are you being anti-social again?????

Well, that's the rebuke my wife often uses when I'm sitting in the corner at parties, updating my Facebook status on my iPhone! I point out that I'm being social...just in a different way! Joking aside, unless your business is using social media marketing in one or more of its many forms it really is being anti-social.

Small businesses that have embraced their own Twitter presence, Facebook pages and stores and have their own customized YouTube channel are beginning to see the many benefits of engaging better with their customers and prospects, as it translates into increased sales.

You've decided to hop on board but should you try to look after it yourself in-house or outsource the work? Here are the Top 10 reasons to outsource your social media marketing management to professionals:

1. Time Saving Updating -- Facebook pages, daily postings on Twitter and editing or adding videos on YouTube can be a very time consuming business. Unless you have a team of creative people sitting round the office with nothing better to do then it's best managed by social media marketing experts, whilst you and your staff are left to do what you do best - which is look after the additional customers coming your way from the increased online marketing efforts.

2. It Can Still be On-Message and Real -- Outsourcing need not mean that you will lose either the power of your message, the personal touch or the authenticity that your business strives for in your online marketing efforts. Your content can still be useful, inspiring, relevant and personalised for your customers and need not be automated and lacking punch. Of course, it can be the latter if you choose the wrong social media marketing company but the best ones out there will get to know your business, account manage you well, interact regularly and be able to tailor content precisely to your marketing message.

3. Extra Boost of Creativity to your Marketing -- The right social media marketing management team can be a great creative asset to your online marketing campaigns. They can suggest offers, promotions and competitions as well as creating blog articles that will help generate interest in your business.

4. Extra Credibility in your Market -- Becoming recognized in your market as authorities and developing credibility is important to the overall success of your small business. The best social media management teams will do this by providing genuine, quality content (after consultation with you) that keeps your business name in your customers' and prospects' minds as the go-to business for your field.

5. Includes Content Monitoring -- A good social media management service will include content monitoring so that you know what is working well and what's not. No marketing effort is ever going to be 100% effective, but by monitoring what your customers are saying - both the positive and negative feedback - you can adjust your marketing and your business' products and services accordingly.

6. Detailed Monthly Reporting -- Online marketing needs to be measurable and your outsourced social media management should provide you with monthly reporting so that you can measure your ROI and see what campaigns and marketing strategies are most effective for your business.

7. It Will Optimise the Web Presence of your Business Too -- Social media management teams know how to optimise your online presence so that your business ranks well with search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo. This means that new customers will be driven to your web site as they will be able to find you. The truth is that most people outside of online marketing professionals don't know how to do this, so businesses who are not outsourcing may be missing out.

8. Your Business will be Engaging with Customers & Prospects More Regularly -- Outsourced social media management packages usually include a certain number of Tweets, Facebook updates and maybe even videos made or articles written. This means that you will be interacting a lot more with your customers and prospects and this will relate to more interest and increased sales; doing this yourself would likely go some weeks with no contact as you simply would not have the time or you would forget.

9. Social Recommendations of Your Business' Products and Services -- Don't underestimate the power of social recommendations of your products and services. This can have a huge impact on sales for your business. Word-of-mouth advertising is some of the strongest around and if you are presenting your products to large numbers of people in a social forum then this is going to pay dividends in the long run. Using a social media marketing company for this will help you get it right first time and prepare for the flood of new inquiries.

10. Incremental Programs Keep Costs Down -- When you balance out the costs of traditional marketing with a well-managed social media marketing campaign you will never bother with Yellow Pages again! Traditional TV, newspaper and magazine advertising is costly but the beauty of social media marketing is that it can be slowly ramped up as your business needs. It's possible to get a good presence quickly and cheaply with the right online marketing company.

I'm going to add another final one and it's this:

By outsourcing your social media marketing your business will not be left behind by the social media revolution that is changing the way businesses around Australia work. Don't be one of the "dinosaur" businesses that cannot adjust and get left behind by the Y Generation businesses that are coming along riding the social media wave!

Online social networking and social media marketing are the hottest new tools in the business promotion armamentarium. These tools are not only extremely effective for "growing the brand," but for advancing the reputations and careers of executives alike. Customers love the ability to interact directly and personally with these executives. Paradoxically, the singular most common complaint of executives is that online social networking and social media marketing places significant demands on their time.

So how does an executive or entrepreneur reap the benefits of online social networking and social media marketing for the minimal investment of time?

Smart executives turn to S.A.M. the three-part process for optimizing the efficiency of the online social networking and social media marketing process.

Meet S.A.M.

The key to successfully reaping the benefits of online social networking and social media marketing is to provide genuine interaction for customers. This means that the executive must be the actual author of all communications; however, this is only one-step in the process of conducting a successful online social networking / social media marketing campaign. It is basic business economics, delegating duties to free the time of key individuals in the organization produces a larger return on the time investment. S.A.M. includes Strategic Planning, Authorship and Mechanics.

Strategic Planning

An online social networking / social media marketing campaign must be a part of the overall public relations, marketing and advertising plan for the business. In the best of circumstances, online social networking / social media marketing can replace part or even all of the conventional marketing and advertising. Entrepreneurs and executives often have review and oversight of public relations, marketing and advertising plans but seldom if ever micromanage the development and deployment of these plans.

Determining where best to conduct online social networking and social media marketing efforts requires twenty to thirty percent of the time spent each week on an optimal program. Delegating this aspect of the process to a consultant or other highly trained team member saves the executive significant time.

Authorship

This is the part of the process that must be completely the original work and words of the executive. Customers choosing to participate in online social networking with the management and owners of a business expect - even demand - that their interactions actually be with the executive. Everyone in the online social networking and social media marketing industry took notice of the backlash against Brittany Spears when it was discovered that ghostwriters wrote her social networking interactions. On the other hand, multiple celebrities have learned that contributing to their own blogs, Twitters and social networking efforts creates fan loyalty and increased opportunities.

Executives who author their own articles, blog entries and speeches find that the time required is small compared to the favorable response received from audiences and customers. Even more time can be saved by dictating drafts and letting someone else do the typing. In most cases, authorship requires less than ten percent of the time spent on online social networking and social media marketing each week.

Mechanics

The part of the process that takes the most time and causes the dread for executives considering an online social networking / social media marketing campaign is the part most easily delegated to an employee. The mechanics of posting blog entries, Twitters and social network comments requires only a bank of authentically authored content from which to draw and the knowledge of how to post that content to the appropriate sites.

The process of posting content combined with the process of locating new social media contacts accounts for fully half of all the time spent on online social networking and social media marketing efforts. When these duties are delegated to an employee operating in accordance with a well-defined strategic plan and clear ethical