4 tips for choosing the right social media agency

Today, outsourcing your company's Facebook and Twitter profiles to a social media agency is an increasingly popular option, thanks to lower costs and increased flexibility. But what should you consider when choosing an agency to work for? We look at four ways that top clients are using to choose an agency to work with.

Do they understand their culture and vision?

Making sure your chosen agency understands your company's culture and vision is vitally important. The social media agency will be representing your brand online, so they will need to know your brand from the inside out. However, rather than expecting them to know your brand and industry perfectly from the start, as a client, it is their role to ensure that the agency adheres to your brand's values ​​and vision. When naming an agency, make sure they understand your brand by teaching them through a workshop or seminar.

Are they expert communicators?

Platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook are all about communication, so your agency should be able to communicate concisely and consistently to ensure that your brand's values ​​and reputation are accurately projected. The successful active social media users agency has expert communicators. Digital marketing managers often come from a wide range of roles focused on interacting with the public, for example, public relations, customer service, or journalism roles. Your agency is likely to contain a mix of people from these backgrounds, which is a great benefit by assigning one person internally to your social network who can only be an expert in one area.

The correct methods

One of the most important ways to differentiate between one social media agency and another is through its methods. You must ensure that the agency is using up-to-date methods that generate results. To do this, you must keep yourself up to date with resources from the social media industry such as Mashable or Social Media Examiner. You will then be able to accurately audit the agencies for their potential effectiveness and ask them about methods you are not sure of.

A common way to compare agencies is through case studies. Be sure to ask when these campaigns took place, as even a year ago, digital marketing trends for companies were different, and companies had different goals on social media than they do today.

How do they measure ROI?

This leads to the last thing to consider. As digital marketing trends continue to evolve, and even as recently as six months ago, social goals were different, and so was the method of measuring ROI. In 2013, social ROI has to do with the effect it has on the bottom line. Fortunately, the tools have become popular and are looking to measure this.

A great benefit to customers is that a modern social media agency tracks everything it does using the same metrics that are used elsewhere in its digital marketing arsenal. Thanks to smart tools like Google Analytics, it is possible to track your customers from their first contact with you to the final sale, even for several days. Make sure your chosen agency has the knowledge to deeply integrate their social platforms into your digital marketing in this way to reap the full rewards of social media.