I am increasingly distressed by the number of businesses that trust their social media presence to an intern. Companies spend millions and millions building their brand, and then trust that investment to someone they’re not even paying, or that they’re paying diddly.

I’m not going to argue that the younger generation is probably more social savvy than an established marketing guru. And no doubt, an intern is going to work for WAY less than that marketing guru. But just because you know how to set up and post to Twitter and Facebook on a personal level, it doesn’t make you a business social media marketing expert.

I’ve posted before about how Social Media Is Not Free – and neither should a company expect that they can pay less and get more.

In addition to the intern fiasco, companies are also posting for freelancers to get them 1000K fans, or 10000K fans for $1 an hour. Seems like a bargain, right? And there are plenty of people out there willing to work for next to nothing. But even at $1, you’re wasting money. What good is 10,000K fans that are brought to your page by bots, or black-hat methods, if not one of those 10,000 people care a hoot about your business.

Which takes us back to interns. Without any experience in the business world, without any experience in building a brand, without any experience in crisis management, without being seasoned in crafting a marketing message – much less a social media message that represents YOUR COMPANY – your “free” labor becomes a liability. If that person doesn’t know and adhere to company policies, brand voice, or just how to interact with people that have issues, it can hurt your brand tremendously. Remember, once it’s “out there” in the social media ethos, it’s out there.

I attended a seminar this week called “Social Media, So What” presented by Vocus. I had already drafted this post, but one of the presenters had a quote in his slide show that I thought was particularly relevant. (Props to @NealSchaefer, Windmills Networking.) An intern thought it would be a great idea to include trending hashtags in posts that had nothing to do with the trending hashtag in order to have their posts show to a larger audience, which is essentially spam.

“The hashtags were uploaded without Habitat’s authorization by an over enthusiastic intern who did not fully understand the ramifications of his actions.”

It seems like an investment in a professional might not be so much of a cost anymore.