Among some industries and business circles, social media is still often seen as an afterthought. Many assume it’s just a frivolous time consumer that doesn’t offer much for business goals or growth. Full of cat photos, memes, and seemingly pointless videos of people dancing, you may wonder what the point of prioritizing social media for your business is.
We hate to break it to you, but that thinking is outdated and could hurt your business in the short and long term.
If your business still doesn’t have a strategy for a consistent, on-brand social media process, you are missing out on one of the most powerful and comprehensive digital marketing tools out there. And, might we add, one of the cheapest avenues for advertising and promoting your brand.
But before you say, “Okay, I’ll have someone on my team post on social media a few times a week,” we want to caution you that social media is so much more than just “having someone post occasionally.” And that’s precisely why you should consider hiring a full-service social media marketing agency to handle your social marketing.
Here’s why having a social media marketing agency working for your brand can elevate your brand recognition, your sales, and even your market value.
Social Media Is A Marketing Powerhouse
While it may seem ubiquitous, social media is growing at an astounding rate. Since 2019, there has been a 9.2% increase in people using social media worldwide. And that rate is anticipated to continue growing.
An analysis from Kepios showed that in July 2022, there were roughly 4.70 billion social media users around the world. That’s around 59% of the world’s total population. We’re seeing over half of the world’s population on social media, with those numbers growing every single year. So, why wouldn’t you take advantage of the opportunity to reach an incredible amount of people that you could turn into customers?
But when it comes to social media marketing, so many skills are required to be successful at it.
Graphic design, copywriting, videography, social listening, social ad fluency, etc. It’s nearly impossible to find one single person who has the skills and bandwidth to handle all of that. And even if you could find a single person with those skills, it’s not possible to have one single person bring success to your social media marketing. There just isn’t enough time in the world for one individual to handle all that’s required.
That’s where social media agencies come to the rescue. Their size and scalability can change the game for your social media impact.
Access a Team Of Specialists for Support
Social media marketing takes time, skill, and testing to understand, let alone be successful at it. When you hire an agency, the skill-set requirements are assured.
Rather than one individual having basic skills in the different areas, you’ll have a team of specialists with individualized and honed-in knowledge that goes deeper than the basics. It’s always better to be great at a few things than mediocre at everything. An agency gives you those specialized skills with not an ounce of mediocracy.
With an agency, graphic designers will create on-brand, beautiful visuals, copywriters will craft creative captions and call-to-actions that work, and strategizers that manage your ads, just to name a few. And your brand vision and voice will be guiding all of that.
They Have Endless Resources
What business would say no to more resources? We can’t think of any.
When you hire an agency, you’ll have a world of dedicated resources available to you and your business with everything you need to produce stellar social media campaigns, all under one roof.
With an agency, you won’t need to subscribe to new software services or buy fancy equipment because the agency already has everything they need to succeed. And we’re not just talking physical equipment. You’ll also receive targeted, in-depth insights and modern research best practices that agencies have gained from first-hand experience working with many accounts.
The overhead costs for creating a social media manager position, a social media studio, and/or a social media team are astronomical compared to the resources your agency’s team already has access to. Why not take advantage of all that for a fraction of the expenses?
Unbiased Thinking With a Fresh Approach
When working for a business every day, it’s easy for employees to get stuck in the work environment bubble and start to have singular thinking. After all, how many different ways can you say “Merry Christmas from [brand]” year after year?
While this singular thinking mindset isn’t necessarily bad, it can hinder social media marketing because it prevents your team from getting creative beyond the work culture you’re in every day. As a result, every decision is made based on internal data, opinions, and echo-chamber perspectives. And breaking out of those thought routines can be difficult and time-consuming.
On the flip-side, when you utilize an agency, not only do they have access to resources and tools, but they’re also more likely to have less biased data and different verticles to ensure your approach is on-trend, outside the box, and doesn’t fall into singular thinking. You’ll have multiple perspectives from experts within the social media industry looking at your content and optimizing it for this year, this month, and so much more.
Because these social media agency experts are also working with other brands and constantly analyzing what’s working and not working across multiple industries, they’re able to see where trends are headed, how different brands are utilizing the latest fashion craze or pop culture moment, and more. With all these fresh perspectives, your brand’s social media presence won’t get siloed into a specific type of post or personality – it can grow and evolve organically, all while attracting larger audiences for you to market your products and services to.
This fresh, outside approach will work wonders for your social media marketing strategy and help reach and connect with a wider audience.
You Save Money and Time
You may think that having a dedicated, in-house person is cheaper than hiring an agency, but that’s not the full truth.
Consider this.
When you hire a new person, say, a social media marketing person, you have to invest a lot of time and money into hiring and training them before they can even begin working on strategy and implementation.
On the other hand, with an agency, they hit the ground running almost immediately. In fact, you’ll likely be the one being trained while they help get you up-to-date on their processes, lingo, and approach – all while they already have feet on the ground with your social media marketing strategy!
An agency team will already have certifications, accounts set up, and strategies in place and know how to get your marketing up to speed as quickly as possible. For example, most SharedTEAMS social media team projects can be set up in just a few days, and your programs can be up and running in about one week! Even if you had the best new hire in the world, it would take longer than that to familiarize them with your business, offerings, and audience.
They’re Incredibly Efficient
Who doesn’t love efficiency?
And in the business world, efficiency can make or break you.
Agencies can make instant changes to your campaigns because that is their primary focus. They live, eat, and breathe social media marketing. Because of this, they can plan, build, execute, and edit powerful social media marketing campaigns for your business within a matter of days or weeks.
And if something happens that throws a wrench into your business plans – supply chain issues, personal or professional emergencies, etc. – your agency will be able to pivot, update, or scrap any social media posts and efforts that run counter to this new direction or initiative.
That ability to pivot has been tested a lot in the past few years, and more and more often, businesses are finding it valuable. As much as we would all love to choose a path for our business and find success, the world (and everyone in it) changes too fast for that to be a good route for any business to be on for too long.
Content is King
When it comes to social media marketing, more is definitely more. Instead of taking a once-weekly approach to posts and simply sharing the same images and text across platforms, you have to optimize each of your social media channels for a potential customer that will likely view your work for less than a few seconds.
Sometimes it feels impossible for businesses to connect this way, and that’s why there are so many brands with a lackluster online presence.
The sheer volume of quality content that you have to be able to produce for your brand makes it almost a requirement to partner with a social media marketing agency.
Content on social media has a short shelf life and only a few seconds to make a big impact. And while we’ve known the power of the elevator pitch in marketing for decades now, there’s nothing in the history of how to run a business that could’ve prepared us for the huge amount of rapid-fire content that people are consuming each day. The average social media user browses their channels for several hours per day, and that means they are consuming thousands upon thousands of messages, posts, videos, images, branding and marketing strategies, and – of course – cute animal content.
Hiring a team of social media experts that you don’t have to micromanage can be infinitely valuable to your other business efforts. That volume of content can be curated by others, approved by you, and enjoyed by your target audience in record time.
Constant Testing and Optimization
Just like your content volume has to be increased to keep your audience interested in what you’re saying online, your business should also be testing and optimizing these social media messages to continue to stay relevant and relatable to its core audience.
Social media marketing agencies are constantly refining their approaches to every platform, post, and strategy. That takes a lot of manpower and a lot of hours that your business may not have to dedicate to social media efforts.
Social media agencies are testing videos, captions, colors, comments, and everything in between. And since they’re doing this same testing for several brands, you get to reap the benefits of all the things they’ve learned through the years and by working within multiple industries.
Lean on the Experts
If you’re looking to expand your marketing program, step into the incredible world of social media and grow your business by hiring a social media agency.
While social media is a powerful and valuable tool to grow your business, it’s by no means a guarantee. However, when you invest in a high-quality, creative, experienced, knowledgeable agency, you’re very likely to see success and a return on your investment.
If you’re interested in working with an agency on your social media program, get in touch with ShareTEAMS to learn more about how our social media team can bring your business to the next level.