Defining your strategy and desired outcomes of your social media efforts will help you determine which networks and websites you want to have a presence on, what sort of content you’ll need to create, required time investment and necessary resources among other factors. Until you define your strategy, the other questions are harder to answer because different networks and websites will require different interactions and content.

I have to disagree with your connection to outsourced call centers. I think this is comparing apples and oranges. Call centers have always been a horrible experience for consumers and frankly, no one really expects much from them. Consumers aren’t looking to engage with a call center rep. You don’t call a rep looking to have a conversation with them. You want your problem fixed as soon as possible and you want to get off the phone. Social media is about forging a connection.

I am still up in the air if they will be managing the actual content or just adding friends, building out our lists and squeezing for us.

regardless of how it is staffed, the persons description needs to be honest. I am a communications professional that is serving the role of the social media manager for company X

Contact centers are outsourced (and not just to India) as a common best practice. The good ones get to know the company and products better than the people within the company. this would be a similar thing.

Regarding outsourcing, let me ask you this question. If you found out that a company you were engaging with had outsourced their daily social media activities and didn’t tell you, would you feel lied to? Would anybody care to follow @jetblue or @wholefoods if the tweets were coming from an outside agency?

Once you outsource this part of social media it stops being social media and becomes just another PR tool.

the flip side of this question is what is the risk of placing individuals within a company as the rock star face to social media. last i checked people switch jobs all the time. in fact, cmo’s switch jobs every 2 years on average. companies need to find a balance between authenticity of voice versus limiting risks.

my take is that a title (and that title can switch people) needs to be the lead. whether that title is staffed by agency or company does not matter as long as all the things mentioned in the many of the thoughtful replies above happen.

gw

So the question is not can you outsource your social media campaign but should you. Charity raises the concern about transparency. Stating that companies need to disclose the fact that they outsource their social media for fear that being found out down the road would be disastrous. I agree, if someone is speaking for you I think you have an obligation to let people know. But if a company listed on their twitter profile that all the tweets come from an outside agency would you care what they say? Would you bother following them?