Most companies face content marketing questions every single day: One, is it a good blog post that will be valuable to your markets? Is it hitting your product’s value points without being manipulative—in other words, is it all about you trying to sell, or is it about building your brand by engaging your customers with information they really want? Are you getting responses, or not? Do your customers feel like you’re listening to them? Are you? Do your posts reflect that?

And two, do you have the internal resources to get it done? This requires not just good, on-point, thoughtful, strategic content—as well as the occasional fun piece—but a plan for using it, and a team with the understanding and mission to make it happen. Making social media happen means regular time, daily or weekly. Engagement means relationships; relationships are built over time. Today, there are more ways to build those relationships than ever before. If you’re a medium-sized company, you may just want your staff focused on what they do best, which for most companies is not marketing.

If you’re a large company, it’s a rapidly evolving marketplace out there: Sometimes it makes sense to outsource to a team of marketing experts. Of course you need to pick professionals who actually take the time to get to know your company. Long gone are the days of one-size-fits-all marketing. Nowadays, you not only need to have something worth selling, you need to know what your customers are interested in hearing about. Marketing companies know how to figure that out, and send it out (execute). I believe, however, that our work helping clients market is always a partnership: No one is going to know your product and industry like you do. A good marketing company will stick close to you, making sure your knowledge permeates and focuses their work.