I have the perfect new employee for your company.

This employee is adept at sitting around, sifting through all the latest news and gossip. They understand your company pretty well, and will work diligently to learn the ins and outs so that they can directly engage your customers.

There’s just a few things you should know.

This new employee won’t be doing any direct sales but they will make a lot of your customers pretty happy.  There’s a good chance they’ll annoy quite a few of them as well. They also won’t work by any real schedule that you have, and your dress code is unacceptable – they’ll be working in whatever they feel like wearing. They also don’t have a college degree and will be spending more than 80% of their time on Facebook and Twitter, along with a number of other social sites.

Did I mention that they want to work from home? Do you have an opening?

10 years ago we would have laughed together at the request, but not anymore. You and just about every other company out there should consider whether or not having this kind of position is viable.

I (and many others) have mentioned before that it’s no longer a question of whether or not you should get involved in social media, it’s just a matter of how and when. That leads to this query: Do you hire someone, or do you outsource?

The answer really depends on your business and how much direct control you want over the individual or group handling your social media presence. Hiring direct is a good idea for a firm capable of providing a decent regular wage along with benefits for a full time employee or a group of part time employees. Having the group or individual in house means you have immediate control over your social media presence and those employees can attending training, meetings, conferences and more within the organization to ensure that they are up on all the current company information relevant to their content and social media marketing.

Should you op to outsource, there is still plenty of control to be had however you need to ensure that those agencies or individuals stay current on company info. The benefit to outsourcing is that you can often get the services at a lower rate that won’t fluctuate under contract agreements as opposed to living, breathing employees that demand raises lest they handcuff themselves to the water cooler.

If you’re hiring an individual or several people to fill an in-house team, keep in mind that there’s no college degree for social media marketing.  Not quite yet, it’s getting there. The old rules of marketing don’t even really apply here, so a Harvard grad with a background in marketing is about as charming as a shaved cat to your social following. An outsourced firm or individual will likely have a bit more experience than an individual as they’ve already been in place working with other companies and clients to manage social media presence.

The whole beast is still relatively new, so there’s a learning curve as we all move along. The important thing is that businesses need to do something to solidify their social media marketing presence.

One thing you should not do is manage your social media presence on your own. Your focus should be your business, and social media (and marketing in general) can quickly become a huge time suck – especially if you become popular among those who follow you. Before you get sucked into something you can’t walk away from (because leaving followers suddenly hanging is bad) it’s best to get someone in place before you’re overwhelmed and burn out hits.

I’ll leave you with this article from Marketing Sherpa regarding the future of social media marketing and the way businesses are changing their position.