Do You Manage Social Media in House or Hire an Agency?

As a company, you need to take advantage of social media to truly make an impact, connecting with your target market and growing sales. There are two main choices when it comes to managing social media: doing it in-house or hiring an agency. Each option does have its own advantages. However, most companies will do best with the expertise of an outside agency that has experience in managing social media campaigns.

Familiarity with Your Brand and Authenticity

One of the reasons your company may consider managing social media in-house is to ensure authenticity and familiarity with your brand. Interactions with fans and customers on social media pages should feel as if they come from your company, and many people worry that an agency cannot achieve this. While that might be true of some less experienced agencies, those with experience running social media accounts are able to convey authenticity.

When managed properly, your customers will believe they are actually talking to someone who works in the company’s office every day. Agencies work hard to understand the business and its values, so they can accurately represent your company on social media. They want you to succeed since this helps their bottom line, as well.

Dealing with Crisis Situations

Your social media account must deal with a crisis situation swiftly and effectively. Whether the crisis is a viral negative review, negative press involving your company, or something else, using social media effectively can minimize the damage. While it is typically a bit faster to respond to the situation with an in-house social media manager, you will get a better response from an agency.

After all, your in-house social media manager will be unlikely to have dealt with a similar situation in the past. Meanwhile, agencies deal with them all the time. Additionally, the delay in response if you hire a social media management agency will not be that significant, particularly if you select the right company. While time is of the essence in these situations, a poorly thought-out but quick reply can actually make things worse, something that will not happen with an agency.

Creating a Strategy

To create the best social media strategy, you need a multifaceted team with experience using social networks to achieve a goal. It is possible to develop these strategies in-house, but you will likely need to pull staff off other important projects, at least during the planning phase. Using an agency lets your personnel focus on their tasks. It also lets you take advantage of the agency’s experience in helping other companies work toward their goals.

It is also easier to produce realistic goals and expectations when working with an agency. This is because you have the results of other social media campaigns to provide guidance on what is possible. On a related note, an agency will be able to answer your questions related to social media and using it for marketing, so you do not have to struggle to find the answers yourself. This dramatically reduces the risk of mistakes along the way, which could cost your company money or hurt your reputation.

Finding Influencers and Networking

 To get your social media marketing off on the right foot, you must begin accumulating real followers, not just purchased followers that are secretly fake accounts. Depending on your company, you simply might not have the connections necessary to gain followers quickly. However, an agency will typically have a database with influencers that would be happy to work with you to help increase your followers. In this way, you do not have to spend time trying to connect with influencers or determining who might be a good match for your company.