The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools, and Strategies for Business Success, 3rd Edition

In-House

Existing Staff

Even if you are just a one-person show, there might be others within your organization who would love to help. Is there someone passionate about your company who likes to write? Invite her to write your blog. For someone else who is a social butterfly and loves his own Facebook page, have him manage your Facebook page. If there is another who likes to tweet, then you’ve got yourself your new Twitter rep.

In most cases, they will require only a little guidance to get them started. Have your blogger write a blog (only 400 words or so), look it over for grammar, punctuation, legal perspective, intellectual property issues, and if it’s on corporate message. Remember that if you are a publicly traded company, there are a lot of SEC rules about what you can and cannot say in your communications. Guide them without a heavy hand, as they are volunteers, and let them go. It should require much less effort to manage than to do it all yourself.

Outside Staff

If there just isn’t anyone you can recruit, then look for help outside that you can bring inside. There are interns, college students, temps, craigslist, eLance, and so on.

I know that managing interns is like herding cats, but once you get them pointed in the right direction with proper training, they’re pretty good, and in most cases, they’re free. College students are awesome and inexpensive. The best way I have found to identify the brightest and best is to call the dean of communications or marketing at your ...