So. It’s finally reached the point where your brand can no longer manage your social media channels in house. You want to grow your social media engagement or your pages have been neglected for a long time but you don’t have the knowledge or resources to manage them.
Either way, it’s time to look for a social media marketing agency to handle your requirements.
As director of the Contentworks Agency, I’m going to tell you how to search for a social media agency, what to avoid, and what questions you should be asking.
Let’s take a look at the three phases you will go through when you look for a social media agency.
Phase 1: Know What You Want in an Agency
You know when you’re hungry and you go into a supermarket without a shopping list, you end up buying loads of junk that you don’t really want and regretting it later.
It’s the same principle when you shop for a social media agency.
Many brands reach out to agencies without the first idea of what they want to achieve. It’s cool if you don’t know how to manage your social media channels but you should know what you want from your outsourced agency in terms of social media marketing. Here are some of the things you need to address before you start searching.
Your Need. Why do you need a social media agency? This is important because it helps to define the duties that you can’t fulfill internally. Do you need someone to manage your channels? Which channels? Do you want posts every day? Do you need someone to create content or are you more interested in advertising?
Your Manager’s (and Her Manager’s) Buy In. Have you got manager or director approval for a social media agency? If you haven’t, then you’re about to waste everyone’s time, mainly your own. In large organizations, it can take time to gain approval for hiring an agency and you may need to prepare a report defining the business needs. This may then need to go up through the approval channels, including your marketing manager, CMO, CTO, CEO, and shareholders.
Don’t drag your potential social media agency on that long-winded journey with you. Get everything provisionally approved so you know you’re in good shape to start looking.
Your KPIs. What are your Key Performance Indicators (KPIS)? From a social media perspective, these are usually to boost engagement, drive more web traffic, get more signups, connect with influencers or improve customer service.
Knowing your KPIs will help you to communicate your needs and targets to your potential social media agency. It’s very important that the key decision makers in your organization agree on this. Failure to discuss this at an early stage can result in a breakdown in communication with your agency later.
Your Internal Resources. Take stock of where you are right now before you reach out to a social media agency. Do you have an in house designer? Can she cope with more designs for social media? Do you have a content writer? Can he create engaging posts for social media? Do you need to have social media posts signed off by legal or compliance? How will that work if you hire an agency? Knowing the landscape of your internal capabilities will help you to identify the scope of work for your outsourced team.
Your Budget. The budget can be one the most frustrating aspects of searching for a social media agency. Why? Because nobody will say a price!
Your boss won’t tell you an exact budget, most agencies don’t write prices on their sites and there’s you — stuck in the middle.
The amount you spend on an agency will ultimately depend on the amount of work they have to do; how good they are and the amount of resources they have to dedicate to your brand. This could be $500 per month for a few posts per week or $10,000 for a complete strategy, full channel management, content creation, reporting and meeting time.
Understanding your scope of work first will help you to determine a fair and competitive price. Remember, the cheapest isn’t always the best option but then neither is the most expensive!
Phase 2: The Online Search
Before you reach out to any agencies, search online to shortlist some potentials. This can be a tedious process which involves far more than just typing in “social media agency” and contacting the first ones on the search engine page results. Here are some tips.
Search Engine Page Results. If you open Google and type in “social media agency,” you will have a ton of results returned to you. While this can be a good starting point, you need to remember that the social media marketing agencies at the top are paying Google to be there. This may mean that their organic ability to generate SEO-worthy content and social media buzz is not great.
It certainly doesn’t give you any indication as to whether they are good at social media management.
Reviews. The sad reality is that many reviews are faked, especially ones that appear on an agency’s own website. That said, reading the reviews in marketing forums, Yelp, Google, and Facebook may paint a more realistic picture of a social media agency. Try typing in your chosen agency name followed by reviews and see what people are saying.
If nobody is saying anything then ask the question yourself. If you find something alarming, note it down and ask the agency about it later to see how they respond.
Social Media Pages. It goes without saying — but you should definitely check an agency’s own social media accounts. Are they keeping their pages updates? Are they responding to questions? Are their updates well written and well designed? Are they getting a reasonable engagement rate?
Don’t worry if their style isn’t exactly what you want for your brand; this is their brand not yours. A good agency will create a style to suit you.
Forget looking at high fan counts too as these are often faked. Instead look at their engagement rate. Statistically, anything over 1% is considered a good Facebook engagement rate so if your agency has 1000 fans and receives 10 engagements then it is organically doing well.
Netweave, a social media agency in Florida (USA), often gets good engagement with its Facebook posts. With about 2,300 fans, this video post received 89 video views, 9 post likes, and 5 enthusiastic comments.
LinkedIn Revelations. Check out the agency’s management…
