Things to look for when hiring a social media agency
Having a strong social presence can really help your brand! For businesses who decide to outsource their social media, it’s important to know what to look for in an agency or perhaps consultant when handing all of your social media marketing efforts. Whether you’re looking to bring on an outsourced business or a full-time worker, the decision shouldn’t be made lightly. You’ll want to consider a few things when searching for your perfect social media manager.
- Participation: One of the first steps in looking for someone to run your social media is if they have social media accounts themselves. Is the agency or consultant active on social media? Start doing your research. Find out if they have their own social media platforms and if so, how active they are. When checking it out, see if their content is relevant. Wouldn’t you want the company running your social media campaigns to practice what they preach?
- Customer management: Social media is transforming consumer relationship management and consumers expect to be heard. Whoever is going to run your social media platforms needs to engage in real time in order to keep up with today’s customer exceptions. This can be very time consuming unless the agency has some tool to help monitor each of your platforms. Ask to see how they’ll keep up with the conversation.
- Content: Content is king when it comes to social media. It’s what catches the attention of audience members and grows businesses. Make sure you’re searching for a creative mind. Ask to see samples or a portfolio of their work. If their professionals, they’ll already have one made. See if they can understand the nature of your firm and be able to voice your brand. Engaging content is the goal.
- Education: Social media is one of the most rapidly changing fields. In fact, a few years back Instagram was an app that very few little people had on their phone. Today, there are over 400 million monthly active users. There is no traditional schooling for social media as of now, however to know if your agency is educated, make sure their actively participating on social media.
- References/portfolios: Most agencies will not be able to give you a list of everyone they’ve worked with in the past due to confidentiality policies. However, they may be able to give you a name or two. Ask to see if they have a portfolio with any of their current or past client’s projects they’ve worked on.
- Who’s managing your account: When outsourcing your social media management to an agency, there could be multiple people working within the social media department. You’ll want to know who’s working on your accounts. In some cases, the owner, leader of the department, associate or even intern could be the one handling your platforms. Ask yourself who you would want working on your social media marketing efforts. An intern straight out of college may sound appealing at first, but social media is more than just tweeting and posting updates. If you wouldn’t hire them to represent your firm, would you want them to be the voice of your brand?
- Reports and Analytics: You’ll want to know if your objectives and goals are being met when outsourcing your social media. Reports will be a make or break when hiring. Monthly reports can keep you up to date on the achievements of social media efforts. Reports and analytics show things like influencers of your brand, number of mentions, which messages were the most positive/negative, and more. If you’re not keeping up with the progress of your agency, how will you know they’re driving results?
- Look for strategy: Every social media strategy will need to work around a unique consumer base. Ask candidates which tools they’ll use to include in their strategic process. Look for someone who work with your plan without the need to be guided constantly.
If you’ve decided it’s time to outsource your social media, we hope these tips help lead you towards the prefect social media manager match!