An Authored article by Mr. Sachin Shah, Founder, The Hype Capital
In the current digital landscape of 2023, outsourcing social media has emerged as a crucial avenue for businesses worldwide. With over 4.95 Billion active users globally, leveraging social media has become an integral strategy for businesses to connect with their target audience, enhance brand visibility, and drive sales. Amidst this backdrop, a pertinent question arises for businesses: Is outsourcing social media management to an agency a strategic move or a potential challenge?
We’re in 2023 and social media has become an inseparable part of our lives. With over 4.95 Billion social media users across the globe, social media has become an essential tool for businesses to connect with their target audience, increase brand awareness, and drive sales. However, managing social media accounts can be a daunting task for businesses, especially small businesses. Some businesses prefer doing their social media in-house. And some businesses prefer outsourcing social media management to specialized agencies. There is always a debate on whether a business should do its social media management in-house or bring an agency. I’ve laid down some pros and cons to help you understand if outsourcing your social media to an agency is a prudent decision.
So, let’s jump straight into some of the pros of outsourcing social media to an agency.
1. Expertise: Social media agencies have specialized expertise in managing social media accounts. They have a team of professionals who are well-versed in social media marketing strategies, content creation, and analytics. For instance, they can help you to identify the right social media channels to use, the kind of content that resonates with your target audience, the communication style and more. Most brands often try to focus on multiple channels without a real, impact-driven strategy.
2. Time-Saving: Outsourcing social media management to an agency frees up your time, allowing you to focus on other important aspects of your business. It’s a time-consuming task to manage social media accounts, create content, and engage with followers. By outsourcing, you can rest assured that your social media presence is in good hands. This gives you more time to focus on essential tasks such as product development, customer service, and sales.
3. Cost-Effective: Most people think social media is a one-person job but don’t understand that social media marketing is a different universe that requires copywriting, graphic designing, content creation & strategy, online reputation management, video creation, and more. Each area requires people who have good skills in their respective areas. Hiring a full-blown team can be heavy on the pocket, and an agency can be a cost-effective solution for this.
4. Consistency: A social media agency can provide consistent content for your social media accounts. They can create a content calendar, ensuring your social media accounts are regularly updated with engaging content. This consistency helps build trust with your followers and increases engagement. Besides that, it will also help you maintain consistency in content, style, communication and design. All are very necessary for creating an impact and recall.
But, before making a decision, you also need to understand what could be the potential challenges and cons of onboarding an agency:
1. Dependency on the agency: Outsourcing your social media to an agency means you depend on them to build your social media presence. You have to trust the agency to represent your brand as you want. You will have to let them plan, ideate, create and guide you to create a stellar brand. If you don’t onboard the right one, the agency could end up posting content that doesn’t align with your brand’s values, or it may use language that doesn’t resonate with your target audience.
2. Lack of Personalization: A social media agency may not be able to provide the level of personalization that you desire. They may not understand your brand’s unique voice and tone, which could result in generic content that doesn’t resonate with your audience. It may also not be able to understand your industry the way you do, so that could lead to coming across as someone with a lack of experience and you wouldn’t want that, right? Besides that, messages that require a specific personalization that you offer, could not be replicated by the agency.
3. Prompt Communication: Prompt communication is vital for social media. We live in a hyperactive, fast-paced world where everyone expects responses immediately. If the agency doesn’t have the right resources and system in place, it could result in delays in responding to customers or missed opportunities to engage with your audience. It could affect customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Outsourcing your social media to an agency can be a prudent decision if you’re a small business that doesn’t have the resources to manage social media in-house. Outsourcing can provide you with the expertise, save time, be cost-effective, and help you create consistent content to build your social media presence. However, it’s critical to weigh the pros and cons before deciding. Outsourcing to the wrong agency can be more problematic than having no agency, so that’s a decision you should make after carefully weighing the pros and cons of outsourcing an agency.
