In one of the previous articles, I wrote about how to choose an SMM specialist. However, the company does not always need its own specialist, and sometimes it is better to hire a specialized agency. Therefore, today I propose to talk about how to choose an SMM agency.
However, before applying to the agency, you should clearly understand for yourself why you need promotion in social networks and what goals you set for yourself. Ideally, you will have a marketing strategy in which the SMM promotion strategy is included.
As the request like this: “We need something cool in SMM and as cheap as possible”, has long been not enthralled by a professional agency, such an inquiry will be answered by a freelancer only or an agency with 2.5 clients and half a year of experience in the market.
Summing up the above said: determine for yourself why you need to advance in social networks and what goals you want to achieve.
How to choose SMM agency
What it should be looking for when choosing partners among agencies:
- Specialization.
Perhaps, the majority of users will disagree with me, but I still believe that it is hard to sit on two chairs. You either do SMM and you have the whole company live it, or you somehow lose focus (and as a result you miss trends, novelties of the market, etc.) if you are not only promoting but also creating websites, outdoor advertising and etc. Therefore, in my personal opinion, preferences should be given to those who are engaged exclusively in promotion in social networks.
- Portfolio.
A good agency should have its own portfolio. Usually you can see it directly on the agency’s website (I do not think it is necessary to put as a separate item the existence of this site in 2017?), or if you want to see the agency`s projects you can ask to show them on an individual basis.
- Indicators of goals achievement.
As you have already determine the goals and objectives of promotion in social networks, now you need to understand how to achieve and how to measure them. In a good agency, having studied your strategy, you will definitely recommend which metrics you should rely on in your work, and the main thing will explain why. If you are called KPI and do not explain why this is necessary, then the agency just wants to choose the best personal indicators, not considering the interests of the client.
- Experience.
Your future partner should have working experience on promotion on social networks. So ask what team will work on your project, look at the company’s blog, read about what they write and whether they understand your question.
- Reviews.
A good agency always has written or video reviews from clients about their mutual working experience. I am not talking about screen shots from social networks or reviews, how well they were trained by SMM in this agency. If you order promotion, then the reviews should be about this and with the real names of those who left this review and their contacts (phone numbers, e-mail). Therefore, you could contact this person and ask him in detail, if necessary.
- The price.
Do not choose your partners for the price size. To be honest, I do not even want to dwell on this point and explain why cheap is not equal to quality. The criterion price should be included in the last turn, when all other parameters are equal or conditionally equal.
P.S. Also, I want to add that you should not choose an agency by the criteria of working with your niches or competitors. This may seem very tempting, the agency has work in your business sphere and it will show results faster.
Nevertheless, there are two main questions:
1. Do you really think that you do not have any differences from your competitors at all and you immediately get their indicators? 2. Do you understand that the work done for your money will be used to promote your competitors?
We, in “THELAB Agency“, do not fundamentally work with direct competitors and do not take in parallel work businesses in one niche.