Many businesses face a real dilemma when it comes to deciding how they should handle their social media. For smaller companies, they may not have the bandwidth (people or resources) in-house to have a person or persons dedicated to handling social media responsibilities for the company. Larger companies may not want to dedicate their resources to building the social media team that is required to power social media efforts that will keep up with and surpass those of their competitors.
In both of these cases, it can be very cost effective to consider hiring a social media agency. A good social media agency will be able to not only set up social media accounts through the various available channels like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google +, Instagram, Pinterest and more, but they will be able to speak for the business – in the company’s own ‘voice’. To do this in the very best way possible, the agency really needs to have intimate knowledge of the business, it’s industry, it’s people, values and goals. It’s important that they not only tell the right stories, but they need to tell them in very relevant ways.
Besides telling stories for the company, a huge part of the agency’s job is to create positive engagement with the company’s client, customers, supporters and fans. A major goal could and should be to have these fans and supporters become advocates and spokespeople for the company, in effect, spreading word of mouth advertising throughout their own social media circles.
In addition to setting up social media accounts, telling stories and creating customer engagement, a major task for a good social media agency is to monitor the ‘social media world’ on behalf of it’s client. But monitoring is an issue in itself and will be saved for a future blog post.