One of the biggest concerns we often get from clients is about the price of services. This is a valid concern of course, as any investment in marketing your business can be a risky cost. When it comes to social media management, many agencies that offer management services are able to entice clients with bundled deals. These deals usually offer a handful of platforms for one flat fee. Maybe you’ve seen the benefit in this, but in our experience, we have seen the opposite effect. The especially high risk is what we like to call a factory approach. This means companies claiming to do it all for a lower price often cut corners and do the bare minimum when it comes to managing platforms.
It’s understandable that you want the biggest bang for your buck. But before you shell out the money to an agency claiming to manage every service for a flat fee, consider the following points:
1. “One-size-fits-all” Is Not The Best Option For Your Business
Some platforms are not worth posting to. Even if an agency says they will do it as part of the price you are paying. Don’t get me wrong, if a client is determined to post to a certain platform, we are more than happy to take care of it and do the best job we can. But let’s be honest – Foursquare isn’t going to do a whole lot for your business. An agency may bundle a bunch of platforms into one lump package to make you feel like you are getting more. But most likely, if they are posting to a platform that most people aren’t using, then is it really worth bothering? This brings me to the next point…
2. Invest In Platforms That Matter
If they really cared about giving you the best deal and customer service, they would use their expertise to figure out what platforms are worth paying for. Maybe you want to just hand over a check and let some faceless desk jockey go to town on the business you’ve poured your heart and soul into. Plenty of business owners do this and there may even be some who find success. However, a more effective approach is to sit down with an expert who can tell you exactly what platforms make the most sense for your business. And how you can properly use every single penny of your investment. This is something you don’t get with many social media management agencies. Instead, they would rather just get a contract signed and a check cashed as soon as possible with minimal client interaction.
3. The Factory Approach Never Works
Beware of the streamlined factory approach! How would you feel if you knew that your business – that moneymaking endeavor that you believe is an extension of your passion and personality – was putting out the same generic content on social media as a hundred other businesses? This is the approach taken by many larger agencies. They will use the same exact post (one that does little to encourage engagement) for every single client. Whether it’s a company posting the same generic real estate blog (that has their name on it) to every realtor’s page they manage. Or the same food meme being used for 50 different restaurants, the factory approach never works.
4. Your Business Is YOUR Business
As social media agencies often streamline content through multiple businesses, many also find ways to sneakily insert their own brand into your business. They disguise this by claiming it is helping you. This can mean setting up a hub site that carries their brand name, instead of just directing your customers to your business site. Or it can mean sharing blog posts with their company logo plastered all over them. We’ve seen both of these approaches. Both actively take away from the branding of your business.
5. Your Agency Should Work For You
Whoever is managing your business’s social media should be an extension of you, not that company. Let me clarify this point: you want to feel like your digital content strategist works for you and understands the vision and brand of your business. What you probably don’t want is a digital content strategist, who you never even speak to, sitting in an office, and generating the same posts. The same posts for your business as he or she is for fifty other businesses. Ideally, you want something posted to your social media pages to embody your business and create more brand awareness and loyalty. In other words, you want to work with someone who not only can take a chameleon approach to your business. But someone who actually cares about and understands your business.
Stay tuned for Part II: What is “artisan” social media management?
