5 Reasons Contractors Should Outsource Social Media Management

Your Social Media Marketing Agency should host a kick-off strategy session before beginning any social media marketing on behalf of your brand. This session should discuss your brand, your company’s ideas for social media, business goals and what to realistically expect from each social media platform.

After all ideas, goals and expectations have been clearly laid out by your agency, they will produce a content calendar, which outlines what is going to be posted, on which platform and at what time. Each post should clearly relate to your overall brand and social media goals. There should be no surprise posts, blog articles or live videos without prior approval from your staff.

Some companies are hands-off and once an overall strategy has been agreed upon, allowing the Social Media Management Company to post without prior approval. Other companies want to know everything being posted and when. Regardless, these expectations must be clearly outlined upfront so you are able to hold your social media marketing agency accountable for their performance.

Along with a detailed content calendar, you should be clear on when to expect updates from the agency, including account feedback, market statistics and key metrics relating to the initial goals set forth in the up-front strategy session.

Accountability is a major reason contractors should outsource social media management to a qualified agency. It’s easy to hold your Social Media Marketing Agency accountable for the work they are producing. With clear goals and expectations set-forth up front, you’re able to hold them accountable for their progress and performance.

A reputable Social Media Agency charges between $2,000 and $10,000 per month to manage an entire platform of social media accounts, manage blog updates and produce unique content several times each week. For larger companies who are having unique content created daily, especially videos, expect to spend closer to $10,000-$30,000 per month.

Before you gasp at the number, think about the cost to hire a Social Media manager for your company. Outsourcing Social Media Marketing is still less expensive…not to mention you have access to an entire team versus one person. Cost is a major reason contractors should outsource social media management to a qualified agency.

Do you know what a Facebook pixel is? Do you know how to target your ads to people who have accessed specific content on your website? Do you know the right image dimensions for a Facebook ad and the best image-to-text ratio to ensure that your ads are approved? If you don’t, you’re not alone.

That’s why, unless you have a significant amount of time to invest in getting it right, the best way to ensure that you’re getting ROI for your social media ad buy is to bring in a team who has the experience and expertise to do the job right. For a lot of brands, outsourcing social media ad management is the best option.

There are hundreds of social media and digital marketing measurement tools. As 2017 gets rolling, these tools can help your brand to track, test, and improve your social media efforts. That is, if you know what data to look at, and how that data can impact your strategy in the long and short term.

A social agency can direct you to the best tracking tools for your key performance indicators (KPIs), and analyze the data to provide you with insights that matter. Then, they can benchmark that data against the industry, and use it to guide you to better social results. The complexity of a true social media campaign is a major reason contractors should outsource social media management to a qualified agency.

Automation is on the decline for brands. The reason for this is simple. In this digital age, people are still looking for human interaction. They want personality, wit, and a dose of reality.

Problem is, they want it 24 hours, 7 days a week.

This call for less automation coupled with more availability and a faster response time are at the crux of why a social agency is on trend. Outsourcing social media management to a global social agency can utilize their team across the globe to provide true 24/7 coverage. The need for 24/7, personalized attention is a major reason contractors should outsource social media management to a qualified agency.

As we have seen in Q1 of 2017, video continues to trend. This is no surprise, considering social platforms are all investing heavily into the ease and technical excellence of their video sharing abilities.

Instagram introduced their Stories feature, as well as their Live feature. Snapchat is struggling to keep up, with Instagram capturing 100 million users in just two months – a full two thirds of Snapchat’s audience. Facebook Live, as well as native video, continues to outperform both photo and text posts. Youtube is its own beast, where creativity and content are king.

Video is and will continue to reign supreme; however, audiences are picky. They want authentic videos that provide an up close glimpse of life at your company. These videos should fall in-line with your overall strategy and stay true to your brand at heart. Staying current with social media trends, including video production, is a major reason contractors should outsource social media management to a qualified agency.

Whether you’re an international Fortune 500 company or a home service provider serving local residents, as a business in the construction industry, a strong social media presence is more important than ever. In order to understand why contractors should outsource their social media management, it’s important to see the true value of social media on a business.

Social media increases brand recognition, improves brand loyalty, provides contractors with more opportunities to convert leads into customers and helps provide better search rankings.

Still not convinced a strong social media presence is necessary for your company? Check out these 13 benefits of social media marketing for contractors.