When social media was still in its infancy, many businesses didn't pay attention to it. And even for those that did, this was often a task that was handed off to an intern yinyleon. However, now that social media has become such an important part of the Internet and businesses across virtually all industries are driving measurable results through social marketing, many businesses are getting serious about developing and executing a strategy.
In terms of managing social efforts, the two main options for businesses are to have employees handle it, or have a social media agency take care of this work. While giving employees the responsibility of managing this work may initially sound appealing, there are actually quite a few reasons that hiring a social media agency is often a much better option:
Benefit from Experience
Unless you have one or more employees who were hired specifically because of their business social networking experience, chances are anyone who might handle this work for you is going to be completely new to it. While they probably have personal accounts, managing the social media presence of an entire business is a completely different task. Employees' inexperience means it's going to take time for them to learn all the ropes. It also means they're more likely to make a significant mistake.
With a social agency, there's no lull before efforts are ramped up. Instead, the agency will hit the ground running on behalf of your business. And even though they will move fast, since this is the work that agencies do everyday, you can be confident that they'll keep all of your company's social media moving in the right direction.
Proper Planning
While an agency will get to work right away, that doesn't mean they'll do so in a scattershot manner. Instead, everything will be done by following a plan that's formulated from lots of analysis of proven best practices. With employees who don't have much experience in this area, it's nearly impossible to have that type of clear plan from the very beginning.
Top-Notch Management
Because social agencies have had time to experiment with different social media management dashboards and stick with the ones that work best, they'll be able to successfully keep up with the real-time nature that defines social media across multiple accounts.
The Proof is in the ROI
Although certain things like repeat visitors who originated from social media and eventually converted into customers can be tricky to measure, it's not hard to figure out if a social networking agency is helping your business. From looking at how much engagement has increased to seeing the boost in traffic to your site or signups to your email sequence, you'll have access to multiple metrics that can confirm what you're getting from social media.
So whether you're ready to get started with social marketing or have realized that your in-house efforts aren't working, Web Strategy Plus can help ensure your efforts are a success.