Can an agency ever really GET my brand as well as me?

Do you sometimes scroll through your Twitter timeline and wonder about the people behind the tweets? Perhaps you have spotted some clangers from big brands and grown fearful for the authors future after a seemingly ill-judged update.

Being a brand in social media can be tough – competitive and time pressured. We’ve seen some of the biggest crumble in a bid to be reactive or respond to customer queries in an ‘on brand’ fashion.

My good friend and fellow DMA Social Media Council member Hannah Bland recently discussed the demands of 24/7 customer service on social media.

The pressure on companies to ‘manage’ social customer services and more broadly CRM have undoubtedly increased – but a key part of understanding how to manage is, of course, understanding what you want to achieve and what your role could and should be within that conversation.

Listening and deriving insight from how people talk about your brand and what they need from you as a business can inform more than just your social media content. Identifying pinch points within the customer journey through social media can inform your wider marketing and business practices.

Clearly, all the listening in the world won’t mean you don’t have to respond to direct and indirect feedback – be that positive, negative or neutral. And you will, as Hannah explains the need to the right tools, infrastructure, escalation procedures and culture to manage that effectively (and ideally in a scalable and smart fashion).

Yes, yes we’re all on Facebook, who has the right skills to represent the brand?

To assess whether you have the resource available to adequately meet these demands will depend on the following. The first is a clearly defined social media strategy, clearly setting out what we wish to achieve. The second is an honest appraisal of skills within the business within which to entrust this vision and create the right activation plan.

Working with your own internal creative team or agency should enable you to unlock the personality of your brand through tone of voice as much as carefully created visual assets and media.

But the behaviour of your brand is arguably harder to learn – and understanding what you should respond to and how you should respond says as much about you as any crafted line of 140 characters.

Be clear on the roles of your in-house team and honest with yourself about their strengths and weakness. It is virtually impossible for any one person to be good at everything (in social media as in life!) so create clear job specs for the roles you’d expect to activate your strategy.

Cross match your existing team against these roles and evaluate who could be upskilled and where recruitment could be an option. Agency support isn’t a failing of your team – it’s a reality for many of the largest brands and businesses.

Find the right agency for you. Find the right fit and the right people to work with your internal team. Give them the confidence to push your brand and create something valuable for your business and your customers. Never be afraid of saying no – thanks Andrew Feldman.

By Sally Rushton

Member of the Social Media Council

Contents:

1. To insource, outsource or a bit of both?
2. Should you manage customer service through social media in-house, externally or through a combination of both?
3. Can an agency ever really GET my brand as well as me?
4. Insourcing or outsourcing social media customer services: Do you have the legal expertise to keep it in-house?
5. Should you outsource the evaluation of your paid social content?
6. Should a brand keep content production in house, outsource or hybrid the model for optimised customer engagement?
7. What skills are needed to create valuable content for your brand?
8. In-house or outsource: How does a brand decide the best way to grow its community with paid media?
9. Social Media Community Management - Outsource to Agency or keep in-house?