It’s been established, social media is a very powerful tool to grow a business or brand. The ability to reach and engage with so many people who could become potential customers is absolutely crucial. So why would you pay someone to do it if you know the basics on how to? In this article we go over some of the benefits of outsourcing your social media marketing to an agency.
It’s Their Job
Kind of a silly way to start the article, but it’s true. You can do the job(we say job because it is), but an agency can do it better. Agencies have the freedom to work on an account when it needs to be worked on, not when it’s convenient. Social media is a battle for attention and agencies come prepared for war. While you might make social media something you do when you can or even a priority, it’ll never get the attention it will when it’s being managed by an agency. You might be able to do small electrical jobs (upgrading a breaker, replacing a receptacle, etc…) but really it’s in your best interest to have an electrician do it. Now, account management and electrical work are apples and oranges but the point being let the person who knows the job, do the job.
The difference an agency makes really comes down to the content they produce for you, their engagement with followers and others in the same space as you, as well running your paid ads.
Depending on the agency, most social media marketing companies are full service. Under their marketing umbrella they manage your social account(posting, writing the captions, using the right hashtags and tagging the right accounts, engagement with followers and other accounts, etc…), create all new content for you (professional style photos, videos, blog and other copywriting, stories, and other creative items), and manage your paid ads among various platforms.
Paid ads are the most tricky of what is encompassed in digital marketing. Paid traffic can be extremely costly if done wrong and could potentially be just an outright waste of money. The potential digital advertising opens up are essentially limitless, but you have to know how to do it. Most agencies have cut their teeth over the years (personally I’ve spent millions of dollars on advertising) to learn the platform and how to best use it for specific businesses. Many agencies know these advertising platforms like you know your business and it shows in their results. Agencies can get your business in front of your ideal customer at low costs because they know how to use the system and tools.
Social media marketing agencies who offer paid ads as a service do it because they already know how to use the tools. Many cut their teeth by buying ads at the genesis of digital advertising or by having worked for an agency before and by being paid to learn and use digital advertising platforms. Either way, they agency owners offer the service because they’ve done it before. It’s an expensive and risky avenue to go down if you don’t know what you’re doing.
Be wary with digital advertising because paid ads can lose a lot of money and show nothing for them, leading you to believe they’re useless. On the contrary, they’re extremely effective if you know what you’re doing. Facebook’s advertising targeting is so precise you can hit exactly the persona you’re looking for. You can target as wide as women 35+ in The United States or as detailed as men 30-32, interested in muscle cars, who are realtors, who happen to be named Brad, in Boise, Idaho. It goes as complex as creating look alike audiences to that specific audience, but in other geographic areas.
So why hire an Agency?
Just to recap why you would hire an agency?
The custom content they can create for you (videos, photos, blog posts/copywriting, logos and other design needs, website creation/maintenance/updating…)
The knowledge on how to create organic posts to best represent your brand and what you want out there to an audience. Agencies know how to leverage hashtags, who to tag in posts, and engage with your audience and those who could be potentially new followers and customers.
Agencies know how to use digital advertising platforms. They can optimize your/create you a landing page as well as know how to create ads, target the right user, expand your brand to new personas, and to retarget all of those who could be potential customers down the line for new products/services. Agencies also know how to budget your ad for your goals. This is where many businesses go wrong and lose a lot of money.
It saves you a MASSIVE amount of time and removes much of the burden and headache of managing social media. Sometimes social media accounts just hit because their business falls in line with viral content and others you have to really work to build an engaged follower base. This can also save you money in the long run because you arbitrage their knowledge to find you new customers as well as save you money on digital advertising.
Brad James Consulting is a full service social media management agency offering social accounts as well as paid advertising management. We also offer a variety of creative services like photography, videography, copywriting, and website development. Let Brad James Consulting remove the stress and time consumption of social media and help you grow your brands and businesses. Contact us for pricing and services that fit your needs.