Drained by Social Media? Your 4-Step Guide to a Seamless Outsourcing Escape.
Okay, real talk for a second. You know that feeling when social media just completely drains you? Like your mind is buzzing, you're exhausted, but your business needs you to be online, so you can't actually step away? Yeah, I get it. I mean, I really get it – because this is what all of my clients tell me when they first come to me about outsourcing their social media.
My clients, who once felt that exact way, are now finding genuine freedom by outsourcing their social media. Imagine: actually stepping back from the constant news cycle, ditching the TikTok rabbit holes, and stopping that comparison game with everyone who looks like they have it all together online.
If any of this resonates, I just put together this guide that might genuinely help. It shares 4 simple steps – literally things I walk my own clients through during onboarding – to prepare for outsourcing your social media seamlessly. I hope sharing them with you will help you on your journey to rid yourself of this burden!
4 Steps to Prepare Your Business to Outsource your Social Media to a Pro
1. Optimize Your Digital Hub: Your Website.
Think of your website as your business's permanent home base online. Your social media (and my strategy!) is designed to drive traffic to this home base. But if the journey from a social media post to a conversion on your site is bumpy, you're losing potential clients. No matter how brilliant your social media strategy, if your website is hard to navigate, loads slowly, or has a confusing buying/booking/contact process, potential clients will leave before converting. It's like inviting someone to a party but giving them a broken map.
What to check:
Speed: Is your site loading quickly on both desktop and mobile? (Google's PageSpeed Insights can help you check.)
Clarity: Can a first-time visitor immediately understand what you do and who you serve?
Path to Conversion: Is it crystal clear how someone can buy, book, or contact you? Are buttons prominent and forms easy to fill out?
Mobile-Friendly: Does it look and function perfectly on a smartphone?
Ensuring your site is intuitive, fast, and frictionless is the first, crucial step to making your outsourced social media truly pay off.
2. Organize Your Brand Assets.
When you bring on an external social media partner, they need to quickly understand your brand's DNA. Trying to pull together logos, photos, and messaging on the fly during onboarding can slow everything down. These resources are invaluable! They quickly educate your social media strategist, providing deep insight into your services, brand voice, and unique identity. This accelerates the onboarding process, ensures visual and messaging consistency from day one, and prevents your new partner from constantly asking for files.
What to gather:
Logos: All versions (color, black, white, icon-only).
Brand Guidelines: Any documents outlining your colors (HEX codes!), fonts, tone of voice, and messaging.
Key Visuals: High-resolution photos of your team, office, products, or services. Any professional brand photography you have.
Testimonials/Case Studies: Client quotes or success stories.
Marketing Collateral: Brochures, flyers, presentations, past ad creatives.
Existing Content: Links to your best-performing blog posts, videos, or social media posts.
Think beyond just login credentials. Having these organized and ready to share means your new social media partner can hit the ground running, translating your brand into compelling content faster.
3. Find Your Social Media Inspiration.
You don't need to be a social media expert to know what you like (or dislike!) online. Having a clear vision of your ideal online presence makes it much easier for your outsourced partner to deliver. Let me be clear: this isn’t about copying everything they do so we can do it better, it’s about refining your vision and identifying what truly connects in your industry. It gives your strategist a clear blueprint of the aesthetic, tone, and content types that resonate with you and your audience.
What to look for:
Competitors: What are they doing well (or poorly)?
Industry Leaders: Who are the big players you admire?
Accounts You Admire (even outside your industry): What's their visual style? Their tone? How do they engage?
Accounts with small followings: Don't overlook these! They often outperform bigger accounts in terms of engagement and authenticity. Look for those truly connecting with their niche.
Follow them, analyze what resonates, and note down what makes their content impactful. This helps define your brand's desired online personality and ensures your outsourced content aligns perfectly with your vision.
4. Define Your Core Messaging & Goals.
This is perhaps the most crucial step. Before bringing in an external partner, you need to be crystal clear about who you're trying to reach and what you want to achieve. Having clarity on your target audience and measurable goals provides a crucial roadmap for any social media strategy, ensuring every effort drives meaningful results. I can't tell you how many times a client comes to me without this clarity, making strategy development an uphill battle – but we fix that together!
What to define:
Ideal Customer: Who are they? What are their pain points, desires, and demographics?
Unique Selling Proposition (USP): What makes your business truly different and better than the competition?
Core Message: What's the one thing you want your audience to remember about you?
Measurable Goals: Do you want more leads, website traffic, brand awareness, sales, or community engagement? Be specific (e.g., "increase website traffic by 20% in 6 months").
Having these elements clearly defined means your outsourced social media strategy won't just be busy; it will be purposeful and effective.
Your to-do list to Unburdened Growth.
Taking these preparation steps puts you in a strong position to outsource your social media strategy seamlessly. I hope sharing them with you will help you on your journey to rid yourself of this burden! When you're ready, you can truly unplug from social media and reconnect with what matters most: moving the needle in your business, and living your vibrant personal life.
Note:
If you're reading this and plan to work with us soon (like in the next several weeks), we will cover this together during onboarding.
If you're reading this, and plan to work with us in the future, like later this year, then we can do this together and give you an actionable to do list with our 90 minute consultation. This service isn't free, but it comes with a transcript, recording and an actionable to do list.
If you want something even MORE comprehensible to prepare for outsourcing your social media, then a Custom Strategy Playbook would be for you. The Strategy playbook is DEFINITELY not free, but it provides exact instructions for whatever website platform you use, and we do 2, 3 & 4 with you, so you can focus on other things that may be a barrier for you before outsourcing your social media.
This blog post was originally written for our linkedin article, read it here
