Three ways to do it
There are roughly three ways to run social media.
| Approach | Suits companies that | Strengths | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Outsource everything | Can't put a person in charge internally, or want to get set up fast | Everything from planning to posting to analysis is covered | Costs keep running. Little skill is left inside the company |
| Do everything in-house | Have someone who can write about what happens on the ground | The feel of the workplace comes through as it is. Costs stay low | If the person in charge has other duties too, it may not last |
| Outsource part | Want to own the content but are short on hands | Hand off only what an outsider is good at | You must decide who does what |
Which is right differs by company, but if you're unsure, start with "outsource part." You keep a feel for running the account in-house while covering where you're short of hands.
When in-house suits you better
If most of what you want to say on social media is content only people on the ground can write, in-house is the better fit. A shop's daily life, a craftsperson's hands, exchanges with customers, seasonal purchasing. An outside company can interview and write these up, but it takes time and effort.
The biggest challenge of doing it in-house is keeping it going. If the person in charge has other duties, posting stops in the busy season. Setting the pillars and number of posts within a realistic range, and using tools to cut the work of preparing drafts and scheduling, is the key to keeping it up. For how a person doing this alongside other work can proceed, see for people juggling it with other duties.
When hiring an agency suits you better
If you can't put a person in charge internally, or you want to get in shape in a short time, hiring an agency is a better fit. Planning campaigns and producing images and videos also tend to improve in quality when you hand them to an outsider, because they need specialized skill.
However, if you hand over everything, nothing may be left inside the company. When the contract ends, if you have no record of how the account is managed or which posts worked, you start again from scratch.
How to split it when you outsource part
If you outsource part, break the work down and decide where to send it out. Running social media divides roughly into these tasks.
| Task | What's good to keep in-house | What's good to outsource |
|---|---|---|
| Planning (what to post and when) | You know your own schedule and what happens on the ground | They have seasonal plans and campaign formats |
| Writing | You can write in the language of the workplace | They're used to writing what gets read |
| Images and video | You can take photos on the ground | They have editing and design skills |
| Posting and scheduling | You can judge the mood of the day | They can take on the time-consuming work in bulk |
| Replies and DMs | You know the customers' circumstances | They can always check at set times |
| Analytics and reports | You can connect the numbers to your own sales | They're used to compiling and summarizing |
Decide which tasks to outsource where your lack of hands overlaps with what the outside company is good at. For example: take photos on the ground yourselves and send them over, have the writing and image finishing done for you, and keep approvals and replies in-house. That way, you keep the stories from your workplace and hand off the time-consuming parts.
Once you've set the boundaries, put in a table who does what by when, and both sides keep it. If the boundary is vague, you get mix-ups like "I thought you were handling that" and "I thought that was our job."
What to decide before hiring
Before you hire an agency, decide these four things in-house. If they aren't settled, the agency can only make generic posts, and your own character won't come through.
- What you want to achieve on social media (purpose and target numbers)
- Who you are speaking to
- What you do and don't write (operating rules)
- Who inside the company is the contact and who approves
The third can be handed to the agency once you've put it together as operating rules. How to write them is in how to write operating rules and guidelines. How to decide purposes and numbers is explained in how to set goals and KPIs.
What to check in a contract
Before signing, check the scope of work and what happens when it ends. Most important is that your company owns the accounts.
| What to check | What to look at |
|---|---|
| Who owns the accounts | Whether the accounts were created with your company's email address and your company holds the admin rights |
| Scope of work | How far you're hiring them: planning, writing, images, posting, replies, analytics |
| Number of posts and deadlines | How many a month, and by when they deliver drafts |
| How approval works | Who approves, by when, and where |
| Reporting | What the monthly report contains and when it's delivered |
| Emergencies | Who to contact and how if a post draws backlash or contains a mistake |
| When it ends | Whether they hand over the images and records they made. How to remove their access |
Avoid giving an agency your account passwords. Where a network lets you grant permission person by person, use that, and for others use a management service that connects through official authorization, so you don't have to hand over a password. The approach to preventing account takeover is collected in protecting official accounts from takeover.
How to stay involved so you don't hand it all over
Even after hiring an agency, staying involved in-house improves the quality of posts. At minimum, do post approval and a monthly review yourselves. Approval is the last check on a post that goes out under your company's name. How to set up the approval flow is explained in how to build an approval workflow.
The other thing is to keep handing over material from the ground: photos, customer comments, news about new products. Whether the agency can make posts that sound like you depends on how much material you give them. If you keep material in one place where the agency can use it freely, you cut the effort of back-and-forth.
What you can do with SNS TOWN
SNS TOWN is built so you can use it whether you do it in-house or work together with an agency.
If you do it in-house, set days and times in your post cycle, and the AI prepares drafts from your company profile and key messages, which cuts the work up to scheduling. Even someone doing this alongside other duties finds it easier to keep to the number of posts they set.
If you work together with an agency, invite the agency's staff as members in members and roles. There are three roles, admin, editor and view-only, so you can make the agency's staff editors and decide that only your own admin approves. Members can post without knowing the passwords to your social accounts, and when the contract ends, removing them from the members stops their access.
On the agency's side, you can keep companies / brands separate for each client. Company information, social accounts, members, notifications, and plan and credits are separate per company or brand, so clients' information doesn't get mixed. How agencies use it is introduced in agencies and production companies.
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免費開始Frequently asked questions
What is the typical cost of social media management?
It varies widely with the scope (planning, writing, images, video, replies, analytics) and the number of posts, so there is no single going rate. Get quotes from several companies for the same scope and the same number of posts, and compare them side by side, including what is included.
Can I start in-house and switch to an agency if it doesn't work?
That's a good way to proceed. After running it yourself for a few months, you know clearly what is hard and what you want to hand off, so it's easier to decide the scope when you hire an agency. The operating rules and records you made in-house can be passed to the agency.
The posts the agency made don't sound like us
Review whether you've given them the operating rules, the key messages and material from the ground. An agency can only write from the information it's given. If you tell them specifically which posts were good and which felt off, it gets easier to fix from the next post.
What should I do when the engagement with an agency ends?
Remove all of the agency's access, and change any shared passwords. Get the images, post records and reports they made, and decide who inside the company will take over. If you settle what happens at the end before signing, you avoid disputes at this point.
If I outsource only part, which part should it be?
A common split is to hand off the parts that need specialized skill or effort, such as making images and video or planning campaigns, and keep the content of daily posts and approval in-house. That way the stories from your workplace stay in your posts, and you fill only the gaps in hands.
What should I look for when choosing an agency?
Check whether they have examples from similar industries and sizes, whether they can show you a sample monthly report, and whether they've set an approval flow and emergency contacts. A company that decides with you what to measure for your purpose is easier to work with long-term than one that only promises more followers.
Can I run it in-house if nobody here knows social media well?
Yes. You can learn the operations as you go, but the stories from the ground can only be written by people inside. Start with fewer posts, set operating rules and content pillars first, and you can keep going even without an expert.
