It's not every day you can find a full-service marketing agency. To tell you the truth, we're proud of the wide range of branding, creative and marketing services we offer. Along with our clients, we walk through a four-step process of planning, development, execution and measurement to give them their desired outcome.

But what about you? If you're a small business owner, "business growth" things like social media marketing may very well seem beyond your reach. How do you get those extra marketing goals accomplished when your employees can be counted on one hand?

Tools, Interns and Social, Oh My

You probably know there are oodles of tools and platforms available online. As a business owner thinking about taking on social media, you have many options to choose from. That doesn't mean you have many good options, however.

For example, some of you are thinking, "Why don't we just turn social over to an intern and call it a day?" We beg you; don't do it. Not if you care about your brand, message and reputation, that is.

There are some wonderful interns and freelancers out there, and they can be trained, but consider a few points:

• Social monitoring, managing and engaging can be cost effective for large companies, but is often cost prohibitive the smaller the company is.
• An intern may end up costing you more in the end, due to lack of brand affinity. They don't know your brand; they're just someone you hired to ruin... erm.. manage it.
• A cheap freelancer may have all the best intentions in mind, and still miss many of the sharable moments that happen in day-to-day business life. These daily moments are a part of what makes a business seem friendlier to the social consumer.

Outsource Marketing Helps Because…

Even though it may seem like an act of business suicide to hire a marketing firm for your social agenda, there are several ways outsource marketing can help your business grow:

Helping you develop a social media strategy. If you're lost and there doesn't seem to be a directional sign in site, time spent with a helpful marketing firm can be extremely beneficial. Not only can they help you find which social networks would be best for your target market, but they can also give you directions on what to do once you're there.

Helping you get started. One of the most time consuming parts of social media marketing is trying to get all the pieces in place. Hiring a marketing professional is like hiring an instant social toolbox, with the knowledge of which tools would help you most. As experts, they've established processes to streamline all the bits and pieces of the SMM process. As your consultants, they'll share those processes with you.

Getting you trained. You have the right tools, you have the process, but how do you use them? For most tools, a few hours of training can help you understand how to use them and keep you from fumbling your efforts. One of the worst things about testing new tools, in fact (which social media marketers often do), is the time it takes to figure them out. A good marketing team will help you cut through all that and go straight to the marketing part.

Helping you measure results. You aren't just pushing social out into some dark, endless space. You actually plan on something successful happening, right? The only way to find out if that "something successful" is occurring is by measuring results. An outsourced marketing team can help you set up a project dashboard to track whether you're moving toward or succeeding in your goals.