Tumblr (3.0; @zachmangum)http://zachmangum.com/<p>It depends.  </p> <p>Some pieces of your company’s social media can be outsourced (programming, design, etc.).  Other pieces should never be outsourced (posting content, administering promotions, etc.).  Here’s why…</p> <p>Social media marketing works best if you are creative (obviously), edgy, and original.  For a service provider, it’s incredibly difficult to be genuinely and uniquely creative, edgy, and original for a significant number of clients.  Without cheating, they can’t scale—which creates a conflict of interest.  This misalignment of priorities (they want scalability, you want a killer campaign manager) yields subpar results.</p> <p>For this very reason, if you’re an SMB on a limited budget, do not hire a “social media marketing expert” or marketing firm to manage your social media.  What do they know about your business?  What company-specific news are they going to break quicker than you could?  What truly creative campaign ideas will they have (most of these service providers will re-hash the same old strategies over and over again in an effort to scale)?</p> <p>If you’re a “typical” SMB, don’t be lazy.  Learn the ropes.  The world is becoming more and more social.  Don’t voluntarily pass on such a valuable learning opportunity.  Social media is new.  The folks that are available for hire are often as clueless as you are.  Save yourself some money and invest the time and energy to learn what to do and you’ll be fine.</p>http://zachmangum.com/post/3952954004http://zachmangum.com/post/3952954004Fri, 18 Mar 2011 21:35:06 -0600<p>I co-founded GroSocial in late 2009 with a good friend of mine, <a target="_blank" href="http://twitter.com/kevin_kirkland">Kevin Kirkland</a>.  What started out as a way for each of us to make a few extra bucks moonlighting has turned into an entirely unexpected, very cool technology company.</p> <p>I graduated from <a target="_blank" href="http://byu.edu">Brigham Young University</a> in December 2007 with a BS in Finance. Upon graduating from BYU, I spent 2.5 years with a company called FundingUniverse (now Lendio), helping thousands of entrepreneurs navigate the difficult startup fundraising process.</p> <p>I’m happily married to my best friend and have two handsome little boys.  I love the outdoors, music, sports, and am a die-hard BYU football and basketball fan.</p> <p>You can find me on <a title="Twitter" target="_blank" href="http://twitter.com/zachmangum">Twitter</a> and <a title="LinkedIn" target="_blank" href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/zachmangum">LinkedIn</a>.</p>http://zachmangum.com/post/1514068255http://zachmangum.com/post/1514068255Sun, 07 Nov 2010 23:44:00 -0700GroSocialFundingUniverseEntrepreneurshipBrigham Young University