Social media marketing is competitive necessity and many businesses have opted to outsource the task of creating content for social.

Social Ally recently reported that businesses are opting to outsource their social media marketing campaigns to reduce costs related to their strategies.

Using social as part of a greater new media marketing strategy allows businesses a series of opportunities that many realize they cannot ignore. However, allocating the resources can be a difficult proposition at the outset.

According to Social Ally, some businesses have found that managing tools and departments dedicated to social can be difficult and expensive. Outsourcing social media marketing to a third-party that specializes in it can help save money and reduce some of the issues often encountered.

The report suggests that content creation for social is where the majority of the work lies, and this is where agency partnerships can most help businesses. Prospect engagement on these social platforms starts with content, but consumers and B2B buyers also want to see their questions and other posts answered by businesses.

“Engagement and conversation has to be done by people in the company,” Sally Falkow of Social Ally said in a release. “That’s what social media is all about – conversations between the people in a company and their stakeholders. But engagement is the tip of the social media iceberg: 75 percent of the work is in the research, monitoring and content creation – and that can be outsourced.”

Businesses have opted to outsource other elements of their marketing campaigns in 2012. Brafton recently reported that 31 percent of businesses creating custom content for marketing outsource the task to organizations with qualified content writers.

Joe Meloni is Brafton's former Executive News and Content Writer. He studied journalism at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and has written for a number of print and web-based publications.