Rosetta Thurman (entrepreneur, speaker and co-author of How to Become a Nonprofit Rockstar) wrote a blog post titled ‘The Case Against Outsourcing Social Media’ in which she explained why she believes that nonprofit organizations (her target audience) would best be served by not outsourcing social media and instead having someone internal be responsible for it. As a social media consultant, my initial reaction was “What the heck?” I mean, basically, she was telling her audience why they don’t need people who do what I do and hey, I need to eat! I have to admit though, that having worked within and in support of nonprofit organizations for 10 years, there were parts of her argument that resonated with me.

As mission-driven organizations, it’s important for nonprofits to get people to buy in to their mission in order to raise awareness, increase donations, encourage volunteerism, etc. The argument can be made that someone who works in the organization and is therefore, presumably, passionate about the mission and knowledgeable about the organization, would be the best person to manage the organization’s online communities, etc. So, on that hand, I understand Rosetta’s viewpoint. However, on the other hand, many nonprofits don’t have the bandwidth to be able to support an internal hire for this function.

Often nonprofits focus their hiring on positions that have a direct correlation to the mission (i.e. development, programs, membership, etc.) and don’t hire additional “non-essential” staff if not deemed critical. Positions that do not have this direct correlation (even internal operations such as accounting and HR) are frequently either undervalued, underpaid or both.

I can tell by the number of ‘Social Media Manager’ positions within nonprofit organizations that I’ve seen advertised lately that many are realizing that in this day and age, having a social presence is important. The downside is that the majority of the positions that I see are asking for interns to handle this important responsibility. It puzzles me as to why an organization would want to leave the development and maintenance of their social presence to an intern. This is not to say that there aren’t plenty of smart and wonderful interns out there, but let’s face it, what you’re willing to pay for is what you value and if you don’t value your organization’s social presence, why should anyone else?

The other option that many organizations utilize is to assign the social media function to a staff member who 1) doesn’t know what to do and/or 2) is already overworked and underpaid and now this is just one more thing they don’t really have the time or energy to do. Why do that when there are wonderfully capable social media consultants (ME!) available? Many will make the financial aka the “we can’t afford it” argument, but I’d argue that you can’t afford NOT to have a consultant take on this task.

First, from an internal perspective, there’s no overhead. You don’t have to have office space or pay for benefits, workers compensation, payroll taxes, etc. You may be paying the consultant a higher hourly rate than you would pay a staff member, but when you add up your true costs, you’re getting off cheap.

Second, you only pay the consultant to work. Out of a 40 hour workweek, how many of your employees do you think actually work 40 hours? Few, if any. Trust me. Unless they are hourly employees and don’t get any type of paid leave, they don’t have any motivation to do so. Consultants can be paid on an hourly, project or flat fee basis and it doesn’t benefit us to not get the work done or not meet deadlines. It’s much simpler to terminate a contract than to terminate employment, even in an employment-at-will state. Even if you hired someone part-time, you would still be responsible for the aforementioned overhead and if you hired someone who would be responsible for social media as well as one or more other responsibilities, it could be easy for them to get caught up in their other responsibilities and not be able to really focus on what needs to be done on the social media front. This is especially true if their other duties are completely non-related.

Third, and perhaps the most important thing – there’s much more to the developing a social media strategy/campaign than simply having a Twitter/Facebook account. I think one of the main reasons that organizations feel comfortable delegating social media management to interns is because they don’t have an understanding of the full scope of what is involved. “We’re not going to pay someone just to tweet all day!” Of course, if you contracted a social media consultant, you wouldn’t be paying someone just to tweet all day. Yes; Twitter may be one of the tools that is used, but you’d be paying them to develop and implement a strategy based on predetermined goals and most likely to provide you with feedback and data. Just because your intern has 2500 Facebook friends doesn’t mean that he/she can develop a strategy or manage multiple projects.

Earlier I stated that I can understand the argument for having someone familiar with the organization (employee) be responsible for social media, and I can, but I don’t think it’s requisite for successful social media management. A consultant can very easily become familiar with the mission, vision, stakeholders, etc. of the organization. In fact, that would be a key part of strategy development. I’ve been a consultant to nonprofits for years and I’ve seen firsthand how beneficial to an organization outsourcing can be so I am a strong believer in it. Even if the organization utilizes a consultant to develop and implement a social media strategy prior to turning the function over to an internal employee, I’m sure it would prove to be money well spent. The internal employee would at least be given a blueprint with the groundwork having already been laid.

Now, of course, I realize that nonprofit organizations and their budgets run the gamut from miniscule to magnificent, so there certainly are organizations that CAN afford to have at least one full-time employee responsible for social media management and that is a wonderful thing. There is also the school of thought that social media should not be the function of just one person, but rather should be a part of everyone’s job as brand ambassadors/mission advocates for the organization; or at the very least a part of the job of everyone in a particular department, such as communications. I can understand that viewpoint as well, and each organization has to choose what will work best for it. Here’s a scenario for you to ponder: Your organization is already fully staffed. You can’t afford to hire another employee, yet realize that your organization needs a social presence and needs someone to manage it. What do you do? Outsource! If I have an issue with my plumbing, I don’t try to fix it myself or ask an electrician to fix it, since he’s already there working on something else. I certainly don’t ask the college kid down the street to come take a look at it. I hire a plumber. Same concept.

So there you have it, my case for outsourcing social media. Granted, I’m biased, but I also believe wholeheartedly in everything that I just said and I wouldn’t steer you wrong. I’d love to hear your feedback. Which side are you on?