Four Essential Questions to Ask When Choosing a Social Media Agency

So, with over 2.4 billion social network users worldwide – and most of them on Facebook – it’s no wonder that businesses love social media. It’s a wonderful playground for networking, a great platform for promoting products and services, and the perfect place to speak your mind about, well, everything. However, as a business, how do you go about choosing the right social media agency?

Social Media – I Can Do It Myself

Yes, you certainly can. And as nobody knows your business quite like you do, you’re the perfect person to look after your social media. However, the problem arises in the time it takes to get it right, and knowing exactly what to do.

Answering customer questions, replying to comments, following up on queries –  the business owner is the ideal person for this job, and likely the most invested. Building a strategy, understanding the rabbit hole of reporting, and ensuring that a solid schedule of high-quality, engaging, shareable content goes out to the right audience, however, is a big job. And one that can be costly if done wrong.

Most of us, as business owners, know that we don’t have the time and the in-depth knowledge required to “do” our social media properly. So we’re going to hire a social media agency.

Questions to Ask When Choosing a Social Media Agency

How Much Do They Know About My Business?

When choosing a social media agency, you need to know that they understand the fundamentals of your business. Nobody will ever understand it as well as you do, so don’t expect that to happen. Rather, they need to ask questions about your products, your audience, your business objectives, and your future goals. Without this information, they are flying blind. So during your conversation with a potential agency, take note of what questions they are asking you and how deep they are willing to go to understand what your business is all about.

How Much Experience Do They Have?

You really don’t want to be the guinea pig for a new agency. Just because everyone is on social media, it doesn’t mean they know how to leverage it for their own business. I have seen too many people hand off their social media campaigns to their nephew because he’s a Millennial and “they know all about this stuff.” Not true. Your social media is the public face of your company and if people start seeing “Wud u lk a quote?” and a smiley face… they’re going to run the other way. So ask for references, or even better, successful case studies of businesses that this agency has worked for to prove their mettle.

What Does Success Look Like?

ALL of your marketing campaigns should have an objective and a measurable result. For example, are you going for reach – do you want people to know who you are? Then you will want likes, shares, and a good level of engagement from your audience. Do you want leads? Then you will need a specific audience, a decent budget, and an attractive offering (lead magnet) to draw people. You will also need to capture their information and, ideally, position them in a lead funnel so you can keep in contact with them if they don’t buy now. A good social media agency will develop a strategy based on your objectives, implement it, and be able to offer weekly or monthly updates and report on how well the campaign is doing.

Are They Buying What They Sell?

A key indicator of a good social media agency lies in their own social profile. It’s always a good idea to stalk them on the social channels that you are interested in for your own business and see what they are doing for themselves. Are they promoting their own business in an engaging and professional manner? How are people responding? Are the graphics and forms of a good quality? Is their spelling and grammar sound? If they can’t do it for themselves, the chances are slim that they can do it for you.

Choosing a social media agency for your business can be a bit of a minefield, but if you know what holes you could potentially fall into then you can go in armed with the right info.

We at the Digital Coach offer social media services to a majority of our clients as a way to enhance and complement the additional channels that we use; content marketing, email marketing, websites and more. We have a dedicated social media team which specialise in this one thing – and they do it well! We’d love to help you navigate the digital ecosystem… call us now and find out what we can do for you.