Choosing a social media agency: the questions to ask first

Before you hire a social media agency, ask how it will measure success, who will actually do the work, and who will own the accounts. Done well, handing social media to an agency frees you to run the business. Done badly, it produces a steady stream of posts, a monthly report full of likes, and no effect on enquiries or sales that anyone can see. The questions below tell the two apart before you sign.

How will you measure success?

If the answer is only followers, likes and reach, be cautious. Those numbers are easy to grow and easy to report, but they say little about whether customers buy from you.

A good answer connects social activity to the things that matter to the business: visits to your website from social media, enquiries or sales from those visits, sign-ups, bookings, and messages from potential customers. It also admits that some of social media's value is harder to measure, such as people seeing you often enough to remember you, without using that as an excuse to measure nothing.

Ask to see a report they send to an existing client, with the details removed. It'll tell you more than any pitch.

Who will actually do the work?

The people in the pitch aren't always the people on your account. Meet whoever will create your content and manage your channels day to day, and ask who reviews their work before it goes out.

There's nothing wrong with junior people doing the posting, as long as someone experienced sets the direction and checks the work.

Can we see results for businesses like ours?

Look for examples in your sector or at your size. A great result for a global brand with a large budget says little about what they'll do for a local service business. Ask for a reference you can speak to, ideally a client who's been with them for more than a year.

What do you need from us?

Good social media needs input from you: photos and video, news about your products and services, customer stories, and access to the people in your business whose expertise is worth sharing. Ask how much of your time they'll need each month, and in what form.

If the honest answer is "very little", ask where the content will come from, because stock images and generic tips are easy to scroll past.

What's included, and what costs extra?

Ad spend, content shoots, video editing, community management (replying to comments and messages), influencer work and reporting are often priced separately. Get every cost in writing, and ask which figures are the agency's fee and which are money paid to others, such as the platforms themselves.

Who owns the accounts and the content?

This is the question that's easiest to forget, and the one that matters most if things go wrong.

• The accounts should be in your business's name. For Facebook and Instagram, that means a business portfolio in Meta Business Suite that you own, with the agency given access to it, rather than accounts the agency created and controls.
• The ad accounts and payment methods should be yours too.
• The content they create for you, the photos, videos and designs, should be yours to keep and reuse if you part ways. Check that the contract says so.

Will you follow the rules on ads and influencers?

If the agency runs paid partnerships with influencers or creators for you, UK rules require it to be obvious that the content is an ad. The Advertising Standards Authority, the Committee of Advertising Practice and the Competition and Markets Authority publish a guide to making clear that ads are ads, so ask how the agency makes sure the content it commissions meets it.

What are the contract terms?

A long lock-in is worth asking about, but it isn't a warning sign in itself. Ask what it protects for you, whether the price reflects it, and how you could end it early, which are the same questions that decide when twelve-month SEO contracts make sense. A trial or a short first term, followed by a rolling arrangement, is a reasonable thing to ask for. Ask what happens at the end, too: how the accounts are handed back, and what you keep.

Before you sign

Four checks are particular to social media:

• They measure enquiries, sales or bookings, not just followers and likes.
• I have seen a real report they send to a current client.
• I know how much of my time they need, and where the photos, video and stories will come from.
• The contract says we keep the content they create for us.

The rest are the six checks every quote should pass: who does the work, who owns the accounts (for social media, that means your business owns the Meta business portfolio and gives the agency access), the fee kept separate from ad spend, the term and notice period, the measure and the date, and what you get.

A good agency won't be worried by any of them.

What the first three months should look like

A good agency doesn't start posting on day one. Roughly, this is what to expect:

• The first few weeks: questions about your customers, your offer and your goals; a look at what you've posted before and what worked; agreement on the measures that matter; and access set up in your name.
• The first month or two: a short written plan, the first batch of content for your approval, and tracking in place so that results can be seen.
• By the end of the third month: a report showing what has changed in the measures you agreed, what they've learned about what works for your audience, and what they'll change as a result.

If, three months in, you're still being shown follower counts and a content calendar with no view of enquiries or sales, raise it, using the questions above.

Do you need a social media agency at all?

Before you hire anyone, ask whether social media is the right place for your effort, and whether the job suits an agency, a freelancer or a consultant, which our guide to hiring marketing help compares. For some businesses, social media is the main way customers find them. For a local service business whose customers search when they need something, being found on Google may matter more, and it helps to know that Meta ads and Google Ads do different jobs. A marketing plan will tell you which matters for you. And if Instagram is where your customers find you, read whether Instagram alone is enough before you make it your only home online.

Social media management isn't a service we offer. We work with trusted partner agencies and can introduce you to the right one for your business, and if you'd like a second opinion on a proposal you've already received, get in touch.