Social Media has emerged from last couple of years as one of the most popular digital media platform. It has been used as a tool for listening, monitoring, conversing, connecting, advertising and marketing.  It has changed the way we have been communicating till now. It has re-defined the social connection. And, the most important fact is – It has just begun. Things are yet to take a final shape. Businesses across globe are utilizing this new media to improve their current communication model.

In between all this buzz, there are businesses which are still struggling with the obvious question – Why do I need a social media agency? Their basic understanding is – Do I really need an agency to manage my Facebook and Twitter account? And, the basic answer would be – No. You don’t need an agency to manage your Facebook and Twitter account. But, social media is not all about Facebook and Twitter. It’s not about writing few posts and tweets. It’s much more than that. Let’s look at the importance of social media agencies.

Real-Time Information : Time is money and just-in-time information has a great value for any business. The pace of change in business is growing by leaps and bounds. To get competitive edge and access a piece of information before someone else grabs it, is getting crucial. Real time information prompts you to take a quick call, a call which can even change the fate of your business. Information is floating in public domain and all you need is to grab it as quickly as possible.

Meaning out of Mess : Social Media is messy, unorganized and uncontrolled. But, there are real people creating some real data. And, the entire ecosystem is growing. You need to find a way to get meaning out of this mess. Out of millions of posts, thousands of them would be related to your domain and hundreds of them can surely impact your business. You need to rely on a strong filtration so that you don’t miss any relevant information.

Connection and Collaboration : Connecting with your customers, your employees and your competitors is very tough in real life. Social media makes it easy. You can not only connect with people but also collaborate. You can share information, exchange ideas, views and listen to the feedback. But, do you have in-house expertise to utilize different social media channels to do so? Do you monitor them 24*7? How much in-house person hour you can devote on this?

Research and Grow : Social Media is a great source / tool for doing research. There are millions of people talking on thousands of different topic at any given point of time. These people are real people and most of the time they share data which is relevant to them. A company which is aiming a research before taking a call can easily utilize this flow of information. They can even talk to people who are conversing on their area of interest. They can connect with subject matter experts.. If needed – they can do online surveys and / or check out previous such surveys / polls done by other agencies.

Enhance +ve WOM : We had a lesson in childhood. Our teacher used to ask,  “how can you make a particular line small?”. He used to draw a line on blackboard. Most of the students used to rub from one side to make it small but teacher had a different solution. He used to draw a bigger line near that existing line. It makes the original line smaller without doing any harm. The same theory applies with your online impression. You need to draw a bigger line of your positive Word Of Mouth. If will help the negative flow of data about your organization smaller. Do you know how to do that? Which channel to use? What time?

Having said all this, you shouldn’t make haste. Don’t appoint a social media agency just because everybody else is doing so. Do your homework first. Understand your business requirements. Make sure that the agency your are appointing also understands your business. And, most important – make sure that the agency has a subject matter expert from your domain.

I’ll try to touch base on this topic again in my further posts. Drop me a mail at info@niteshambuj.com for any specific question on this.