Find the Perfect Balance in Outsourcing for Your Blogging Venture

In this guest article by Nitin Aggarwal, owner of Offshore Ally discusses on finding the right balance in outsourcing. For a startup internet marketer, right outsourcing can be the turning point. Offshore Ally provides trained virtual assistant services for internet marketers and small business. These assistants are trained on most internet marketing related tasks so you don’t have to worry about training and other things.

Outsourcing: Is it a four letter word for your online company, or is it a valid choice to increase your productivity? This is a question that so many online businesses are asking themselves as they create a business plan to include article marketing, social media marketing, search engine optimization, and the ultimate management of their company online. How can you do it all and still stay within your budget?

Outsourcing is a delicate topic because you must walk the fine line between outsourcing the more menial tasks and saving the important projects for those qualified within your staff. As an example, many people have begun outsourcing their social media work to have freelancers manage their profiles on Facebook, Twitter, and even LinkedIn. All of the aforementioned websites are imperative and incredibly valuable when it comes to marketing your company online, but should they be outsourced entirely? There is a twofold answer because it is helpful to employ someone who knows what they are doing to manage your social media profiles. Still, it is better if this individual is a trusted member of your staff because all of your social media profiles should be represented with the voice of your company so that your brand is best showcased to your customers online.

If you are able to outsource your social media management to a trusted individual that can accurately represent your company, all the better, but this project should be monitored until the freelancer that you have outsourced to is entirely trusted in their work.

This being said, what should outsourcing be used for? Many of the more basic tasks that will take up your time and are not worth the effort as the owner or manager of an online business include:

• Directory submission
• Article submission
• Link building
• Web programming
• Web design
• Virtual assistant/administration

Some of the things I don’t advise to outsource are:

• Guest blogging – It’s all about building relationships and networking.
• Market Research – Unless you are somebody who wants to setup multiple websites, you should do niche/keyword research yourself. This will help you gain a lot of insight into what your customers think and are looking for. This is especially important if you plan to get deep into a niche.

Even better, here are some of the ideal online tools to use for the most effective outsourcing:

• Wikidot: This is a social networking service that provides valuable information in graphs, lists, reports, and summaries, and it can also be used to create chat rooms, calendars, blogs, and issue trackers.
• Basecamp: This is a top project management tool that allows you to set up text documents online, milestones, file sharing, to-do lists, time tracking, and messaging for a complete outsourcing project.
• Clockingit: This is a free project management tool to keep track of how much time and resources are spent on each project and client, and it allows you to plan projects, create a schedule, track time, communicate with employees, and create reports.

As you can see, outsourcing is entirely useful when done in the best interest of your company. When you outsource many of these everyday tasks, you can dramatically increase your productivity by saving your time for the more important things: cultivating your business. Still, the mistake that so many online business owners make is in outsourcing everything or the wrong things so that it cheapens the marketing of their company and even misrepresents their brand to their customers online.

Here are some important things not to outsource when marketing your company:

• Creating your business plan
• Building and creating social media profiles
• Planning viral content
• Building relationships with bloggers/marketers in your niche
• Customer research/interaction

The point is that the mistake that many people make is substituting outsourcing for creating relationships with their customers. No matter which way you slice it, there is no way to promote your company online without legitimately reaching out to people who are interested in your brand. Outsourcing any of the tasks listed above will weaken the representation of your company and create potential problems in your customer base.

The most successful online businesses that have started from the ground up have put in the necessary blood, sweat, and tears regarding their marketing campaign.

There is no easy answer or quick fix in social media and Internet marketing, which is precisely why outsourcing should not be used for the more valuable tasks of growing your company. That being said, outsourcing is not something to be overlooked if you want to increase your productivity because you should not be expected to do it all yourself when it comes to article marketing, directory submissions, building links, and even writing web copy for your website.

The key as an online business is finding the perfect balance between the two so that you preserve the integrity of your company and leave yourself the time you need to continue to promote your online business the right way.