This day and age, many, if not most, businesses understand that there is a great power in social media. Unfortunately, those same business owners think it's ok to hire a young kid or someone fresh out of college because they "know how to tweet". 

Yikes!

Decisions like these, however, can cost you.

Building a working relationship with a legitimate digital marketing agency will provide a strategy to generate ROI, not just a spattering of random posts on social media sites.

Many feel that because social media is vastly free, why spend money to manage what you can do for nothing? Remember, time and effort are commodities that have no price tag, costing you more in the long run, never mind the countless headaches, large learning curves and oftentimes, failure.

Just because I can screw in a light bulb doesn’t mean I’m an electrician.

Let’s take a look as to how a digital marketing agency is the right move for your business.

EXPERIENCE

This is the most obvious one.

We have the experience that you don’t.

Hashtag, SEO, synergy, klout, viral, trending… do these words sound Greek to you? They won’t, and shouldn’t, to an agency.

It’s easy to set up a Facebook or a Twitter account as well as asking your family and friends to follow you, but that’s not the key to growing your follower base or creating engagement. Knowledge of each platform and how users respond to content is something that comes with time and experience.

STRATEGY

A digital agency should not only increase your customer base, but also the value of each of those customers. Are you measuring your customer base, your company’s social reach and the value it’s bringing to your business? What strategies work and which fell flat when you thought they were surefire tricks? How can you learn from those social media mishaps?

SAVE YOU TIME

If not for any other reason, a digital agency will save you time (if you hire the right one). No doubt, we all could use more time to develop our business, engage clients and close deals. 

But social media is a living, breathing thing.

Customers are constantly online, always searching, and if you aren’t there, you can lose them. Yes, it happens that quickly. What better way to manage that engagement, while looking professional and organized, than hiring an agency.

TOOLS

Staying on top of the latest and greatest social media is time-consuming and confusing. Which social profile does my business need? Why is Twitter different than Facebook and Google Plus? Is LinkedIn just for business relationships? On top of that, there are many tools to help you manage your accounts. Do you know which tools are the best in terms of listening? Engagement? Posting optimization?

I have a dozen websites that I read every morning and hundreds of people I follow on Twitter to keep up with the constant flow of new information, ideas, strategies, and tools in the social media industry. It’s a digital marketing agency’s job to keep up with the latest trends so that it doesn’t have to be your job, too.

SOCIAL MEDIA ROI: IS YOUR AGENCY WORKING FOR YOU?

How much time are you saving by not needing to put in the legwork on a daily basis executing your social media tactics, not to mention keeping up with industry news and new social media tools? That alone can help you determine if spending money on a digital marketing agency is worth it for you.

How has your business grown because of social media? Are you reaching more people and raising your brand awareness? Have you been able to leverage social media campaigns and contests into new customers? Are you regularly bringing back customers for return business by engaging them through