Hi there as you are actively researching how to choose the best social media marketing agency, with our industry knowledge and experience we could easily state that either you are already running and managing the social media account with any agency and you are not happy with the service offered and looking for social media agency change. Or you are completely new to the domain and looking for a fresh start with the best social media marketing agency to plan or business needs. In this blog transparently we will try our level best to cover all the important elements that need to be examined before we sign a contract with any social media marketing agency.
We recommend you start with self-analysis on the need for social media presence for your business. Social media includes many platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Pinterest, Snapchat, etc. Do an analysis of the social presence of your competitors and how are they planning their activities? This could include when did they start their social page or channel, how many page likes/subscribers they have so far, what is the frequency of posts/videos they post daily or on a weekly basis. Where are they routing traffic (Website/Generating calls) from these social posts and videos? Further, you may enlarge this analysis based on your industry needs, conducting a similar study will give you a benchmark to define your KPIs/business needs & the objective of your social media activities.
If you are completely new, suggest starting with the best 2 or 3 performing channels as per competitor analysis. Now the point comes whether you have to plan the social management with your own team (if you have any) or you are capable enough to handle it by yourself or you may need any external social media agencies to handle it on your behalf. To evaluate this we recommend below points
| Sr. | Self-evaluation questions | Need of tools and expertise |
| 1 | Who will plan the content | The basic idea of content creation includes creative content and post descriptions. |
| 2 | Development of creative – Banners | Hands-on experience in creative development one should be familiar with any of the tools like Adobe photoshop, Adobe Spark, Canva, Bannersnack, BeFunky, etc. Guide to creative banner designStep 1 – Decide on your post themeStep 2 – Identify Your AudienceStep 3 – Brainstorm IdeasStep 4 – Conceptualise Step 5 – Choose your tool & formatStep 6 – DesignStep 7 – Text, Translation & CTA |
| 3 | Development of creative – Video | Before you start creating a video, you should choose a primary channel for sharing that video. With a smartphone, you already have all of the tools you need to create fun and engaging social videos. Guide to plan video content Step 1 – Decide your Objective Step 2 – Identify Your Audience Step 3 – Plan Video – (Behind the scenes videos, Slow-motion video, Live streaming an event, Video slideshow, Q&A video, How-to video, Interview video, Music video, etc) Step 4 – Make High-Quality VideoStep Step 5 – Add to CTAStep Step 6 – Use Hashtags/keywords |
| 4 | Who will manage ORM? | This includes participating in social groups to share your posts, comments, replies, feedback, etc on social channels to mention your presence. |
Few of the major activities need to be carried out on a daily/weekly basis to keep an active presence on social media consider the above list to incorporate. We strongly suggest you realize your skills, available time. Based on this you could easily come to conclusions whether you need any external manpower or any marketing agency to build the social media strategy. Based on your realization we suggest taking a call in the next step to outsource the social media management or to retain in-house or to manage it at your level.
For those entrepreneurs or solopreneurs who are actively involved in operations and other activities of the business, we understand taking the self stand to manage the daily social media tasks would be hard and difficult in such cases keeping an inhouse online media team or outsourcing it to media agencies will be a right choice. However, for both implementations cost involvement is an important concern. The below table will give you a rough idea of the active manpower involvement required to maintain the in-house team. We request you to plan the salary slab as per your country/city to find out the lump sum monthly salary cost.
| Team | Employ required in numbers | Alternate option |
| Designer/Developer | Creative designer to develop and design ideas | Hiring Freelancers |
| Content/Online Media Executive | Exc./Manager to manage the content, and to carry SMO (social media) activities. | Hiring Freelancers |
Now we suggest you plan your media expenses based on business needs, let say how much are you interested to invest in media based on your monthly business margins. Or derive to an amount xyz that looks okay for you to invest in digital media in the initial stages, compare the salary cost with your planned media budget if it goes above your media benchmark, drop the plan of inhouse/freelance setup time to hunt for an alternate option.
So far in this blog, we understood what were the two major options to manage social media marketing and the third & the last option is listed below:
- Self-creation and management
- Hiring and managing with in-house team or freelancers
- Outsourcing to the social media marketing agency
Here are the few criteria you need to consider before you choose any social media marketing agency:
- Cost
- Client base
- Company performance & existence
- Experience in similar domain
- Terms and contacts
- KPI deliverables
One of the easiest ways of getting connected with media social media marketing agencies is by visiting the Google partner site. Technically it is not a correct way to connect because this platform offers companies offering google services however in most cases Google certified companies and sales partners offer Social media services, Search engine optimization along other Google services. This is one of the quick and very legitimate ways to find any online media marketing agency across the globe.
Please follow the steps below for a quick search
- Visit Google Marketing Platforms
- Select creative under product drop-down list
- Enter the location and hit enter to find the list of google certified companies
- Select relevant agencies from the list connect them Via Email or visit their website to connect further.
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