Last night on our Facebook Summer Camp Marketing Tips group, we discussed which (if any) social media marketing sites work best for camps. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and others came up.
One of the group members sent me a private message afterwards asking my thoughts on whether he should contract out his camp’s social media marketing activities to an agency. He said he’s very busy and this could make things easier on him.
I know as well as anyone that camp folks have many balls to juggle. But I don’t think you should ever outsource your social media marketing to a third party. Camps are social entities inherently, and even the world’s best ad agency or marketing consultant could never be as effective establishing relationships, building trust, and interacting with camper families as you.
At the same time, if you want to farm out some of your other marketing activities like strategy and planning, advertising campaigns, branding, video production, graphic design and various other areas of camp promotion, great.
But keep your social media in-house because you’ll be hard-pressed to find any outside consultant who understands, and can convey, your camp’s “personality” through social media anywhere as well as you.