How to Choose a Social Media Management Firm [With Checklist]

A brand’s social media efforts greatly influence its online presence and credibility. Social media management is essential to making or breaking a brand. It refers to the continuous process of creating engaging content, scheduling posts, and managing a brand’s account in order to generate leads.

Experienced social media management firms are professionals who make sure brands maximize their social accounts to form authentic relationships with their clients. They know how to connect with consumers and make them feel seen, heard, and appreciated.

Investing in top-notch social media management can unlock benefits such as increased brand awareness, improved customer relationships, and access to valuable customer insights.

If you’re planning to hire a dedicated partner soon, the countless options can be overwhelming. Knowing what steps to follow and what factors to consider can help you streamline the process.

Keep on reading and we’ll break down everything you need to know when choosing the perfect social media management firm for your business.

1. Identify your Social Media Goals

Before you set out on a search, the first step you need to take is to sit down to identify and assess your goals. You can call on your marketing team or co-owners to discuss potential criteria to refer to when exploring potential service providers.

Some of the common social media goals include:

• Gathering insights from customers
• Managing brand reputation
• Improving customer service
• Driving website traffic
• Building online community

A great way to identify your goals is to assess your business, target audience, and how your current social media channels perform. For example, if your customers don’t interact with your accounts and posts, you need a partner with a proven record of driving genuine engagement.

Make a list of your priorities and categorize each item by the level of importance. Mapping your objectives will make communicating and articulating your requirements to firms easier when you discuss them.

2. Arrange a Budget

With the internal information you’ve gathered, it’s time to focus on preparing a practical budget for your project.

Service providers will often ask you how much your budget is, so it’s important to immediately know what range you’re fine with. You don’t need to present an exact figure, but you need to give a ballpark range of how much you’re willing to spend.

For this step, it’s crucial to do your research on the average cost of social media management services so you can make an informed decision. Remember to weigh in all the factors involved such as the duration of the partnership, the scope of their responsibilities, and if you’ll need additional services from the firm.

Furthermore, you may also look up how much rivals or similar-size businesses spend so you can avoid overspending on your project.

Typically, businesses already have comprehensive budgets prepared for marketing. In this case, did you allocate funds for your social media management efforts? If not, you need to call on your leadership team to discuss the matter.

Know more about the costs here: "Social Media Marketing Pricing Guide 2023"

3. Examine Potential Firms

Following the first two steps, you can now explore potential service providers. There are plenty of ways to research and examine social media management firms, just stay organized and focused on your priorities so you don’t feel overwhelmed by the process.

Companies can start their journey by contacting colleagues with experience working with vendors and asking for their recommendations. After that, you can browse through trusted resources such as Clutch.

Clutch is an independent reviews and ratings website that encompasses different B2B industries across the globe. Their directories can help you avoid unreliable teams that fail to deliver on their promises. As you go through their rankings, keep the following factors in mind:

• Services offered: Are they experts in social media analytics, content creation, or social media strategy?
• Experience: Are they well-versed in your industry or niche?
• Cost of services: Do their rates align with your budget?
• Team size: Do you need a small team or a bigger agency? 
    
  Always keep your priorities in mind to save time and skip firms that don’t meet your criteria or requirements.

4. Shortlist the Top Vendors

As you search the market, you’ll see that the number of choices can be overwhelming.

It will be impossible to read their profiles and reach out to each to schedule an interview. Instead of individually checking their profiles, you can immediately eliminate the firms that don’t meet your criteria by maximizing the filters on Clutch.

After you eliminate the firms based on their minimum project costs and team size, you can go on and shortlist the top vendors as you read through their reviews and case studies.

Going through reviews gives an in-depth look at the personal experiences of a service provider’s clients.

Reading through reviews allows you to see the perspective of business owners that have worked with them. Their testimonials can help you avoid firms that have poor communication skills, problems with their workflow, or aren’t responsive to their clients.

Remember to consider every detail that matters most to you. If a firm doesn’t meet your requirements, move on to the next so you don’t waste time.  

5. Conduct Interviews

Once you have shortlisted around four to six firms that best fit your needs, you may reach out to them to ask for a Request For Proposal (RFP) and schedule an interview.

Interviews are essential to any partnership or hiring process. If done productively, interviews should give the firm a chance to discuss more of their work and showcase their skills. Meanwhile, it should also give the business or interviewer the details they need to make an informed decision.

Here are a few potential questions that can help you decide which social media management partner to go with:

• What social media tools are you familiar with?
• How do you track social media metrics and KPIs?
• How do you ensure engagement rates don’t go down?
• Do you also offer other marketing efforts like content strategy and social media campaign planning?
• How do you identify the pain points of the social media profiles you handle?
• Can you tell us more about how you determine when to schedule posts?
• How do you plan your content calendar and optimize social media posts to gain the best results?

Don’t lose sight of your priorities when interacting with the vendor and maximize the chance to ask for clarification if you feel like they failed to give substantial answers to your questions.

Additional reading: "B2B Partnerships: Questions to Ask Potential Business Partners"

6. Narrow Down Your Options and Hire the Ideal Firm

With the knowledge you’ve gathered throughout your search and interviews, it’s time for the final step of the hiring process. For this, you can gather your team to sit down and discuss the pros and cons of each service provider you’ve heard from.

Carefully consider whether they met your high-level priorities and if they understood your goals. Not every firm you talk to will offer the same advantages, that’s why it’s crucial to identify which one best fits your needs.

It’s a difficult choice to make but the right social media management partner will not only give you great results but also the peace of mind you deserve. Once you and your team come up with a verdict, the only thing to do is to let them know your decision and request a service level agreement (SLA).

An SLA is a contract between your company and the social media management firm. It details the scope of the partnership, terms and conditions, and other important points.

Before you sign the SLA they’ve sent, make sure you read and review it thoroughly. Don’t put your signature on the paper if you feel like there are unfair risks or if there were any agreements during the interview that weren’t on the contract.

How to Choose a Social Media Management Firm [Checklist]

Need a little more help finding the right social media management partner? Use this checklist to find the right fit for your goals.

Download our checklist and start your search.

Extend Your Reach with the Right Social Media Management Partner

Customers can sense if you’re putting in genuine thought and care when trying to engage with them. When done correctly, social media management will help you establish stronger connections with your target customers.

The search for the ideal partner just seems overwhelming at first. If you know your priorities and stay focused, you’ll see that it’s not too daunting. This checklist will help you understand what factors to consider and navigate through options.

Apply what you’ve learned from this piece as you go through Clutch’s rankings for the leading social media management agencies.

About the Author

Elaine Margrethe Alcantara

Elaine Margrethe is a part of Clutch’s global team of writers. She is responsible for writing blogs, supporting blog processes, and content creation efforts.

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