Outsourcing your social media: what to look for and what to avoid

The short answer

Outsourcing works when you're paying for consistency you can't provide yourself, not for "growth" you've been promised. Look for someone who will tell you plainly what they will and won't do, charge a flat fee you understand, keep a short notice period, and show you real examples without inventing results.

Walk away from anyone quoting follower targets, guaranteeing sales, or asking you to sign for a year before you've seen a month of work.

Be honest about why you're outsourcing

There are good reasons and bad ones, and they lead to different decisions.

• Good: you know it matters, you've accepted it won't get done, and you'd rather pay than feel guilty every Sunday.
• Good: you want the replies handled so enquiries don't sit unanswered for two days.
• Good: you're opening a second site or launching a service and need the pages to look alive immediately.
• Bad: you've been told you need to "be on TikTok" with no idea why.
• Bad: you're hoping someone else will bring you customers, so you don't have to fix the phone being unanswered.

If your reason is on the bad list, save your money for a fortnight and fix the underlying thing first. No manager can make an unresponsive business look good for long.

Six questions worth asking

1. "What exactly do I get each month?" Ask for numbers: how many posts per channel, whether replies are included, what the report contains. "Ongoing social media support" is not an answer.
2. "Who actually writes the posts?" If it's a freelancer overseas, that's fine; just know who you're dealing with, and check they can write in British English for a UK audience.
3. "Can I see two examples of pages you run?" Real links. Look at whether the last post was this week and whether the comments are answered.
4. "What happens when I send you a photo or a change of hours?" You want a clear answer, and ideally a same-working-day acknowledgement.
5. "What's the notice period?" Thirty days is fair. Ninety days or a year is a warning.
6. "Will you tell me when something isn't working?" A manager who never has a difficult conversation isn't managing, they're posting.

The contract terms that matter

Most of this can be checked in five minutes, and it's worth doing before you pay.

• Price and what's included, in writing, including whether ad spend is separate. It almost always is.
• Notice period. Short and mutual. If they can leave and you can't, that's a one-sided deal.
• Ownership of the content. The photos are yours, the account is yours, the login stays with you.
• Access. Never hand over your personal Facebook profile password. Managers should be added through business tools, and removed when you leave.
• Response times. A stated working-day reply is a reasonable commitment; "we'll answer when we can" isn't.
• No results guarantees. If it's in the contract, it's a bad contract.

Warning signs

• Promised numbers of followers or enquiries. Nobody can guarantee either, and the people who do it are usually buying followers.
• A monthly fee with no limit on how many clients per manager. Check how many accounts one person is running.
• Photos of work you can't trace to any real business.
• No contract at all, or a contract you're asked to sign before you've seen a single example.
• Refusal to let you keep ownership of your accounts.
• Pressure to decide today. Good work doesn't need a countdown.

How we'd answer these ourselves

Same test, applied to us:

• What you get: four channels (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Google Business Profile) with a set posting rhythm, replies to comments and messages, a small monthly reach boost, and a short monthly report. The full plan is here.
• Who writes it: a small remote team based in Nigeria, working UK hours. We say that plainly on every page because you should know who you're hiring.
• What we won't promise: followers, sales figures or virality. We promise the work gets done, on time, in sensible English, and that we'll tell you when something isn't landing.
• Notice: thirty days, from either side.
• Ownership: your accounts, your photos, your logins. Always.

When you shouldn't outsource

Worth saying, because it costs us work: if you're posting twice a week already and it takes twenty minutes, you probably don't need us. If your business is seasonal and you only need a push twice a year, do it yourself. If you're turning work away and can't keep up, marketing isn't your problem.

Outsourcing pays when the gap is real: the work genuinely doesn't happen, enquiries go unanswered, or the page has been silent for so long it's actively costing you. That's a specific, fixable problem, and a much better reason to spend £200 a month than vague hope.

In short

Ask what you'll get, who does it, what happens when you need something changed, and how you leave. Judge the answers, not the pitch deck. And never sign a contract before you've seen a month's worth of someone else's work.

If you'd like a straight answer from us about whether you need help at all, start with a free page check. If we don't think you need us, we'll say so.