3 Questions to Ask Your Social Marketing Agency Today

Do you ever wonder if you hired an effective social marketing agency, or what your social marketing is even accomplishing? Open your email. Put in the subject line: three questions. Now send it to your agency (or potential agencies you're considering hiring).

 

1. What services are covered in my cost?

Don’t skip reviewing your agreement thoroughly (and don’t be afraid to increase your scope of work if you need more services). It should tell you:

• how many posts per week (or month) on each platform
• who is responsible for content and image creation
• timelines for content delivery
• whether or not client approval is needed before posting
• if customer service and community management are included
• how often you will be able to speak with your account manager
• how often you will be receiving reports and if they’re customizable

 

2. What can I, the client, provide to enrich strategy?

You may think that once you’ve hired an agency, you’ll be handing off all social media responsibilities, but that’s not really true. A successful social marketing strategy hinges upon a receptive and enthusiastic client partner. Social media is still about real-time updates and there is only so much someone outside of your organization can do. Therefore, your agency should be able to tell you what your team can provide—whether it be images from the office, trade show calendar, new hire notifications, client testimonials, a list of in-store promotions, etc. A great social marketing firm will be able to tell you exactly what you can provide and ideally, how often.

Beyond content, an effective social marketing firm should also have a process in place to provide customer service in a timely and effective manner. This will often require your input.

 

3. How are we going to measure success and how will it be reported?

You can’t measure success without defining your goals first. An effective social marketing company will be able to assess your needs and define reasonable goals that they believe your social presence can achieve within a specific timeframe. Additionally, they should be able to create and outline tests—for different content pillars, demographics, ad types, etc.—that they can implement in the same timeframe.

Reports should be delivered often, in an easily accessible way and, most importantly, you should understand the metrics you're looking at and how performance is increasing or decreasing over time.

If your agency can’t answer these three questions, you need one that can.

Hi. We're Matchstick.

(You knew we were going to hit you with the shameless plug at some point, right?)