Hiring Social Media Manager vs. Social Media Agency

Social media platforms are used by almost everyone around us. There are different social media platforms available in the market. Some are used for entertainment such as Facebook and some are devoted to business networking such as LinkedIn. To keep a proactive presence on social media platforms or to boost lead generation, businesses need to use social media marketing.

Social media advertising with organic or paid campaigns is not a luxury anymore. It has become a necessity. Thus, each small to large business has started using social media advertising for their business brands or products.

To run social media advertising campaigns, one needs to either hire an in-house social media manager or a reliable social media agency.

Here comes the question: how to decide the best model? Whether to hire a social media manager or a social media agency?

Fret not.

In this article, I will share the top tips that you can keep in mind while making this decision.

1. Estimate the work you will have

Social media advertising is honestly not a one-man job. There are multiple professionals who work to run a successful social media marketing campaign. Below is the list of people involved in a successful SMM campaign:

• Social media manager
• Graphic designer
• Punchline writer
• Videomaker

Generally, social media manager takes care of punchline writing as well and a graphic designer can design marketing graphics as well as develop videos. Thus, at a minimum, you will need to hire two professionals.

Social media marketing is very strategic. It is not about posting anything. There have to be well-defined posts. Moreover, each post must be engaging. There cannot be too frequent postings on some social media platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn and there cannot be too few posts on some platforms such as Twitter. In a nutshell, a social media marketer needs to be very mindful of advertising on different platforms.

Based on the business, there would be less or more work. What you need to consider is will you have a lot of work to handle? For example, if you are running an e-commerce company, you will need a lot of marketing collateral and there will be several comments flowing on your social media pages. Thus, you need a dedicated resource to handle social media. However, if you are an IT product specific company such as a call center software provider, then you would not need as much flow of work as in an e-commerce business. Here, contracting a social media agency would be the right choice.

2. Consider overall cost

When you hire an in-house team for social media advertising, you will need to invest in social media marketing tools, infrastructure, and much more to provide the required support to run your campaigns. Moreover, you will also need to invest in training and workshops to upgrade the skills of your team. On the other hand, if you hire a social media agency, they will invest in everything. As they generally work on multiple projects, they can afford expensive tools needed for social media advertising and they do not even charge additionally to you for that.

Concluding note

If you have a huge business that needs a dedicated social media manager staying active on the social media platforms and you have enough budgets to invest in the required infrastructure, then invest in hiring an in-house social media manager. On the other hand, to be focused on the results and keep all stress away, you better hire a social media agency.