As having a social media policy becomes as ubiquitous as having a marketing strategy, brands are going to start asking whether it’s best to manage these things in house or if it is better to outsource.

Buddy Media: popular on Facebook

WPP is obviously banking on it being outsourced by many businesses, having just invested $5m in buying a stake in Buddy Media, which has created a programme that helps brands manage their Facebook pages and campaigns.

Having invested heavily in buying public relations companies in the 1990s, WPP knows well about getting clients to outsource functions that could arguably be handled in house just as well.

It plans to integrate the Buddy Media Platform into its own technology services. And with just about every pro-active marketing campaign these days incorporating a Facebook element, it makes sense that you’d be centralising the management of this to the same people who’ll be planning when the TV ad breaks and when details of competition are printed in a magazine.

It seems Buddy Media does a pretty good job of practising what it preaches — its Facebook page has a lot more fans than you’d expect, and seems to be a fairly lively, newsy place.

But should all social media handled outside the company? I think as anyone who works in a PR agency will tell you, you’re pretty reliant on having pro-active, chatty clients to feed news from the company — stuff that can keep a Facebook page turning over, or a Twitter feed interesting.

Is it valid to compare the attitude, for example of people towards Twitter feeds that come directly from celebrities compared to those that are or appear to be updated by a celebrity’s representatives?

Technology provided by agencies can help track effectiveness, and agencies can come up with brilliant ideas for pro-active campaigns. But on a day-to-day basis, in a conversation with your customers, getting the right tone of voice is an art that it might be better to practise in house.