3 Questions to Ask When Selecting a Social Media Agency

Investing in social media marketing is a worthwhile but time-consuming commitment. If you are too busy running your organization to start and, more importantly, maintain social channels — you may want to hire a social media agency.

Social media agencies specialize in managing and growing your social media channels. They often propose plans for your business, develop assets, run campaigns, and analyze and evaluate relevant data.

If this is your first time looking into a social media agency, there are a few things to consider.

What’s the agency’s experience?

Digital and social media agencies are always looking to add new clients. When researching agencies for the first time, you can narrow down the choices by reviewing their histories. Investigating previous clients will help you understand the agency’s niche. This will ensure your business doesn’t waste time and resources setting hour-long meetings, requesting proposals, reviewing those proposals, and more.

Understanding an agency’s experience can also help your social media campaign perform extremely well. For example, if your business has no social media accounts or a low follower count, finding an agency that excels at launching campaigns with new accounts is a great match. You can learn this by asking to see case studies from the agency. A case study compiled by an agency will provide metrics, parameters, assets, and overall campaign strategies from previous clients.

What can you afford?

An important piece of picking an agency is setting a budget. Before jumping into conversations and setting expectations, decide how much money can be put towards hiring an agency. Additionally, do you need an employee in-house to manage the agency and assist with creative? If so, you will also need to set aside a budget for a new (or current) employee.

While considering a budget for an agency, we recommend deciding what you will require of the business. Do you want them running your paid social media campaigns? Will they build all creative assets, or will you create the assets, and they will post them? Will they write, post, and report on your organic social media? Do you want them to manage everything related to your social media channels? Narrowing your need for an agency will only help you narrow down the choices.

Finally, different agencies have different pay structures. Some agencies may work off an hourly fee, while others have tiered plans. If your business prefers one type over another, having that in mind before contacting the agency will aid in your decision.

What have they accomplished in the past?

Learning the past achievements of the agencies your business is considering hiring will guide you toward the best partner. Utilizing the previously mentioned case studies and reviewing their website are great places to start. Usually, successful social media agencies will list awards they have won and successful campaign highlights on their site. If this is most important to your organization, you can decide which agencies to contact as soon as possible.

Social media is constantly evolving. With updates and new trends to jump on, outsourcing your social media marketing can be the wisest decision you make in 2023. With the helpful tips above, choosing the right social media agency for your organization should be easy enough.