How To Choose A Social Media Marketing Service

How To Choose A Social Media Marketing Agency: The Ultimate Guide For Small Businesses in 2024

Social media marketing can scale your business exponentially IF it is leveraged effectively.

While employing a professional social media marketing service can be beneficial in many ways, it’s only helpful if you choose a social media marketing agency that knows how to help businesses grow online. 

Not all social media marketing agencies are made equal.

So, this guide is going to break down everything you should look for in a social media agency and how to choose the best SMM agency for your business.

What Are The Benefits Of Social Media Marketing Agency Services?

The Facebook platform alone boasts of over 2.9 billion users. Instagram has 2.4 billion, TikTok has 1 billion, LinkedIn has 1 billion and X (Twitter) has 556 million.

Social media gives you the ability to reach your exact target market by the masses and engage with them, message them, direct them to your website and convert them into customers.

You can reach your audience on social media via organic (unpaid) methods or via paid social media advertising. Deciding which route your business needs to take will depend on your business goals.

There’s more to social media, however, than just reach. Social media directly influences purchases and consumers’ buying decisions.

81% of consumers said that their purchases are influenced by their friends’ posts on social media and 78% said their purchases are influenced by brands’ social media posts.

You can only drive sales and ROI from social media, however, if you have an effective strategy in place.

Ask yourself these questions:
What kind of content does my audience want to see?
Which social media platform does my audience spend the most time on?
Which social media platform makes the most sense for my business?
How and where should I advertise my business on social media?
How can I get my cost per result as low as possible?
Which social media tools will help me the most?

If you don’t know the answer to any of those questions, then hiring an SMM agency with experience is likely in your best interest to generate maximum ROI.

Before you do that, however, you need to identify your goals.

Determine Your Goals Before Choosing A Social Media Marketing Agency

In our experience, a lot of times you can ask a small business owner, “What are your goals? What would you like to see happen from social media?”

And they will respond with “We want a lot of followers and likes!” But then they measure success in direct sales.

Having direct sales as a goal is great! But the strategy for a business actually seeking brand awareness in likes and followers is going to look different from a strategy for a business seeking immediate sales.

So in order to have a social media marketing agency implement an effective strategy for you, you first need to be able to clearly articulate what your true goals are.

Let’s break down a few of the most common social media goals for small businesses.

• Brand Awareness: This goal is great for businesses that are brand new. Your audience doesn’t know that you exist yet, and you want to change that. You want your audience to start familiarizing themselves with your name, logo and content. Brand awareness goals are measured in more followers, views, likes and reach.
• Brand Reputation: This goal is good for businesses that have a neutral or negative reputation online. If you’ve gotten a few bad reviews or are struggling to cultivate positive reviews, you’ll want to focus on strengthening your brand reputation before you can expect new customers to trust you and buy from you.
• Group & Community Engagement: If the nature of your business is one that includes a program or membership, growing a Facebook Group or encouraging community engagement may be your goal. You can foster brand loyalty by allowing customers or members to engage with each other in your controlled, branded environment. Group engagement goals are measured in more group members, group discussions and positive interactions.
• Event Responses: If your business is one that hosts events, you’ll want to secure as many attendees as possible. Event-based goals can be measured in event responses, the number of “yes” RVSPs, the amount of community engagement on your event page and the number of tickets sold if applicable.
• Website Traffic: If you’ve already fostered a strong online community, you may feel ready to start sending them to your website. If so, you’ll want to measure website traffic from social media in link clicks, landing page views and the session times on your site from these clicks.
• Lead Generation: Lead generation can be a great goal for almost any type of business, whether you’re B2B and depend on leads to convert into clients or you’re B2C and collect leads to nurture with email marketing until they purchase something from you online. If generating leads is your goal, you’ll want to measure the amount of leads generated and the cost per lead.
• App Installs: If you have an app that you want to promote, your main goal should be increased app installs and/or certain actions within the app. Either can be traced and increased via social media.
• Website Sales: Most ecommerce owners want more website sales. If that’s your goal, it should be measured in the amount of conversions (sales) happening on your site as a result of social media, the cost per conversion and the average order value. You want to ensure that you’re getting sales at a profitable cost.
• In-Store Sales: Depending on your POS system, you may be able to track in-store sales online, in which case you’d still want to measure online sales and revenue. If you cannot track in-store sales online, then you’d want to offer a social media-specific coupon that consumers can physically take with them in the store so that you can see how many customers social media drove your way.

Once you have your social media goals nailed down, then you can find the right social media marketing agency and service to help you meet those goals.

What To Look For In A Social Media Marketing Agency

Like we said before, not all social marketing agencies are made equal. So, you want to pick the right one in order to ensure your business grows as a result of the partnership!

With that in mind, these are the things to look for in a social marketing agency:

• Expertise: You want to choose an agency that doesn’t just say they’re experts but proves it with case studies and testimonials. You want to partner with an agency that has generated the results you’re looking for time and time again for other businesses.
• Good Reviews: Don’t just take the agency’s word for how good they are. Look at third-party, unbiased review sites like Google Reviews, Clutch, and more. If an agency has predominantly bad reviews, that should be a red flag to you.
• Experience In Your Industry: Sometimes, partnering with an agency that has experience working with businesses in your specific industry can result in higher profits. They know the ins and outs of your particular niche and can therefore execute a social media strategy accordingly to drive the results you’re looking for.
• Agency-Grade Analytics & Tools: One of the big perks of working with a social media marketing agency is getting access to their agency-grade analytics programs and tools. If you’re thinking of partnering with an agency that doesn’t offer this, you may be getting less bang for your buck.
• Strong Social Media Channels: A quick way to determine if you should partner with a social marketing agency or not is to look at their own social channels. If they’re inactive, outdated, or not lively with engagement and followers, then how can you trust that they’ll do a better job with your social media channels?
• The Right Pricing: You may find an SMM agency that has everything you’re looking for, but they’re outside of your price range. Vice versa, you may find an agency that is within your price range but doesn’t hardly offer anything you’re looking for. You want to find the middle ground with an affordable agency that can generate most or all of the results you’re aiming for.
• Tendency To Take Initiative: One of the benefits of hiring a social media marketing agency is that they are experts, they know what they’re doing and they can therefore handle all of your SMM efforts in totality. It frees up your time to focus on other areas of your business. If the agency you partner with, however, is not one that takes initiative on their own, you may find yourself babysitting and ultimately leading the charge on the strategy. You shouldn’t be the one asking the agency if we can try this or test that. They should be proactively presenting ideas and strategies to you.
• A Strong Proposal: Your proposal or contract will outline everything you can or cannot expect from the agency, so make sure you study it carefully. If they send you a proposal that includes policies or items that you don’t agree with, let that weigh in your decision to partner with them or not.
• Transparent Communication: Unfortunately, some agencies lock you in a contract and then maintain very little or unclear communication with you afterwards. While yes, you should be able to remain pretty hands-off and let your SMM agency take care of your social media strategy for you, you both should be aware of what is being done and what results are being achieved (or not achieved) at all times. Transparency is key when it comes to professional social media marketing services.

Do These 4 Things With Your SMM Agency To Set Yourself Up For Success

Even if you’ve found what seems to be the best social media marketing agency for your business, there are still some best practices you can implement to ensure maximum value from the partnership.

When you partner with a new social media marketing agency, make sure you do these 4 things:

1. Set realistic expectations from the start (this goes back to your goals and what you truly expect from the partnership!).
2. Share any and all data you have with them (the more they have to work with, the better!).
3. Establish regular calls or meetings that work for both parties.
4. Ask them any questions you have regarding the partnership (you should be clear on any and all aspects of your working relationship together).

The Best Social Media Marketing Agencies for Small Businesses

1. LYFE Marketing

LYFE Marketing was founded in 2011 with a mission to help small businesses grow via online marketing.

They are known for their social media advertising services, generating over $272 million in revenue for their clients via social media alone.

They have been recognized on the Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing companies three years in a row, and the same strategies they used for themselves that got them on that list are the ones they use to grow their clients’ businesses as well.

They were also featured on CNBC’s The Profit because Marcus Lemonis chose LYFE Marketing as the go-to marketing agency to assist with his small business client, Polar Bear Coolers.

LYFE Marketing is a full-service agency, which means they can offer more than just social media.

Here is a full list of their offerings:

1. Social Media Marketing (organic)
2. Social Media Advertising (with paid ads)
3. Email Marketing
4. PPC Advertising (Google Advertising)<
5. Short Video Marketing
6. Short Video Advertising
7. Graphic design

They have different social media advertising packages including custom packages to fit every business’s needs and budget. Contact them today to get a free, custom proposal and quote.

2. Disruptive Advertising

Originally founded in 2012 with the name FoundROI, Disruptive Advertising rebranded to its current name in 2013.

They are known for saying they are the most reviewed marketing agency across review platforms, but the reviews revolve around their PPC services as they are not a full-service agency and do not offer other marketing solutions.

Instead, they partner with other marketing agencies to provide other marketing services when necessary. They offer a free marketing audit.

3. Boostability

Boostability has a DIY SaaS SEO platform for small businesses called LaunchPad that was first launched in 2009.

They offer local, national and global SEO services as well as white label SEO services. As a result, they mostly partner with agencies that offer web design, paid advertising and social media but not SEO.

4. SociallyIn

Founded in 2011, SociallyIn offers a variety of social media marketing services including social strategy, content production, community management, social advertising and influencer marketing.

You must inquire for pricing.

5. Bad Rhino

Founded more than 12 years ago, Bad Rhino is a digital marketing agency based in Philadelphia.

Here are the services they offer:

• Digital marketing strategy
• Content marketing
• Social media marketing
• Paid ads or media buying
• Paid search advertising
• Paid social advertising
• Web design
• Outsourced CMO

You must set up a free consultation with them in order to see their pricing and get a quote.

6. Social Vantage

Social Vantage is a social media marketing company that was founded in 2013.

These are the services they offer:

• Social media management
• Social media advertising
• Social media consulting
• Website design and development
• Google Ads or PPC management

They offer a growth plan and a lead generation plan that each has three different pricing packages.

7. Joseph Studios

Joseph Studios is an agency that specializes in organic growth.

Their services include social media, public relations, SEO, email marketing and content marketing. You must contact them to request pricing.

8. Viral In Nature

Originally founded in 2010 as GoWowMedia, Viral In Nature rebranded to its current name in 2013.

They are a social media marketing agency based in Canada. These are the digital marketing services they offer:

• Social media management
• Web development
• Paid ad management
• Reputation management
• Google Ads
• Search engine marketing

You must contact them to obtain their service rates.

9. MaxAudience

Based in San Diego, California, MaxAudience was founded in 2011.

These are the digital marketing solutions they provide:

• Web design
• Social media marketing
• Digital marketing
• Email marketing
• SEO
• SEM
• CRM marketing
• Marketing automation

They do not have public pricing available, so you must contact them for a quote.

10. Firebelly Marketing

Firebelly Marketing is an older agency as it was founded in 2001. These are the social media services they provide:

• Social media management
• Social media audit
• Social media advertising
• Influencer management
• Studio or photography

You must get in touch with them in order to get more information on their pricing packages.

11. eBoost Consulting

Originally founded in 2005, eBoost Consulting is a digital marketing agency that offers the following services:

• Paid Social
• Paid Search
• Data Analytics

They use both 3rd party tools for their ad campaigns as well as their own suite of tools that they developed.

12. Social Media 55

Social Media 55 is a US-based social media agency that was first established in 2014.

These are the services they offer:

• Social media management
• Search engine optimization
• Email marketing
• Content marketing
• PPC management
• Instagram engagement campaign
• Social media paid advertising
• Branding and media
• Web design and development

In order to get a pricing quote, you’ll need to schedule a free consultation with them.

13. Media Bounty

Media Bounty was founded in 2008 and is a sister company to the Conscious Advertising Network. They offer a diverse amount of services:

• Social strategy
• Digital strategy
• Content strategy
• Media planning and buying
• Community management
• Video production
• Photography
• Influencer marketing
• Creative advertising
• Copywriting

You’ll need to get in touch with them to learn more about what each service includes exactly as well as the price.

14. Rocket Marketing

Rocket Marketing is a newer agency as it was founded in 2018.

While their main services include Facebook and Instagram advertising, they also offer digital strategy consultations, training and workshops.

Businesses will need to contact them to learn more about their pricing tiers.

14. Ruckus Marketing

Based in New York, Ruckus Marketing is a digital marketing agency that was founded in 2005. They offer the following solutions:

• Digital advertising
• Social media marketing
• Search engine optimization
• Search engine marketing
• Lead generation
• Email marketing
• Web design
• Branding
• Photography

Businesses interested in working with them will need to message them to obtain pricing information.

Social Media Marketing Service FAQs

How do I choose a social media marketing company?

Choose a social media marketing company based on which one has the most experience achieving the goals you’re looking for that’s within your price range.

How do I choose a social media platform to market on?

Choose a social media platform to market on that your target audience spends the most time on.

How do I find a good social media marketing agency?

You find a good social media marketing agency by scheduling calls with some of the top social media agencies in your niche, obtaining free proposals from them, evaluating their reviews, case studies and testimonials and determining which one can best meet your goals within your budget.

What is a good price for social media marketing?

A good price for social media marketing is $650-$2500 a month or more to have real experts managing the campaign and generating profitable results for you from social media.

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