Most business owners know that social media marketing is an inevitability. While you may be able to avoid it or handle it yourself while you’re a fledgling company, as your company grows, you’ll need to grow your social media efforts with it. This is when you come to a fork in the road: hire a new employee and start your own social media team, or outsource to a social media marketing agency?
Each option has its pros and cons, and it’s important to know the differences so that you can make the right decision for your company’s future. If you’re ready to grow your brand’s social presence, here’s what you should know about hiring a digital marketing agency versus keeping your social media marketing services in-house.
Skill Set
When it comes to effective social media marketing, the required skill set extends far beyond posting quick updates, as you might on a personal account. For effective, professional social media management, you need strategic planning, platform-specific content creation (both visual and written), paid advertising expertise, analytics interpretation, and community management capabilities. Building this level of expertise in-house can be a challenge, especially for small businesses.
While it requires hiring several people to effectively cover all of these specialties, which can quickly overextend your payroll, marketing agencies come equipped with specialized professionals who are experts in every facet of social media services. Agencies typically have copywriters, graphic designers, ad specialists, and analysts who stay on top of the latest platform changes, all available to you for much less than hiring each of these experts full-time in-house.
Cost-Effectiveness
Budget is always a top concern for businesses, and weighing the cost of a full-time team member versus a third-party agency is the determining factor for many companies. While going in-house can sometimes seem like the more affordable option, especially for large companies that need large amounts of content, the hidden costs quickly add up: ongoing training, employee benefits, and countless tool or platform subscriptions.
Hiring a social media marketing firm provides your company access to diverse talent, advanced tools, and high-quality content at a fixed monthly cost. You don’t need to worry about recruiting, training, salaries, or employee benefits, so for many small businesses, this is often the more cost-effective solution.
Flexibility
Social media changes constantly, so social media agencies are structured to adapt quickly. They can modify campaigns based on your company’s changing needs and quickly scale up your projects if you have increased demand. An in-house team, on the other hand, typically lacks this flexibility. They may have other responsibilities in other departments, or they may lack the skills needed for new projects. If you want to scale your social media, this also requires hiring and onboarding new employees, which consumes invaluable time and resources.
Use of Advanced Tools & Technology
Effective social media marketing requires various platforms and programs for content creation, scheduling, analytics, social listening, advertising, and more. With so many expensive programs required, you can quickly run through your budget if you attempt to take your social media in-house.
Social media agencies already invest in the industry’s best tools and are able to use them across all of their clients, making it more cost-effective for them. If you want to get the most for your money while staying on the cutting edge of the industry, third-party agencies are the best choice for ROI.
Diverse Perspectives
While every employee brings their own life experiences, work experiences, and perspectives to the table, one major advantage of working with a social media marketing agency is exposure to a broad spectrum of ideas.
While your in-house team will likely have experience with one or two previous companies before yours, agency professionals continually work with clients from various industries, giving them fresh perspectives and creative ideas that in-house employees may not always have. They also pair those innovative ideas with proven strategies, offering a deep understanding of what works for companies like yours and what doesn’t.
If you’re looking for a partner who will provide comprehensive social media marketing services with proven results, look no further than IDG Advertising. Our team of social media strategists, photographers, videographers, and copywriters will provide all-encompassing services that aid your success across every major platform. To learn more about what social media services we offer and get started today, give us a call at 714-221-4377 or contact us online.
