At first glance, it seems that nowadays even older people know perfectly well how Facebook differs from Instagram, how “live” subscribers are better than “bots” and, most importantly, how all this knowledge is used to promote goods and services. Nevertheless, the ranks of people who are easily deceived or misled by careless SMM agencies are growing every day. What forms of deception do they use and how do they hook gullible clients? Experts in the SMM services market talk about this and more.
Antonina Gorzhankina, creative director of the Krasnoye Slovo SMM agency (part of the Krasnoye Slovo Communications Group)
The average scheme of deception looks like this: to a client inexperienced in SMM promotion, a little-known SMM agency offers a ready-made and, as a rule, inexpensive package of SMM services, the distinctive feature of which is simple and clear guarantees, presented in numerical terms. Everything looks very impressive: a reach of hundreds of thousands of users, thousands of subscribers and likes, hundreds of reposts, dozens, or even hundreds of orders. In general, not a package, but a miracle. The most important thing is that everything is done without unnecessary words and unnecessary maxims.
Later, of course, it turns out that all these thousands and millions had nothing to do with real life (banal cheating, bots). For some reason, neither hundreds, nor even dozens of clients are visible. But this does not confuse SMM scammers at all, since they know very well that according to the report they have done their job, and the clients they deceived will definitely not go to court over an unsuccessfully purchased package worth 5 or even 100 thousand rubles. As they say, there is no judicial prospect, especially since the services of a lawyer/attorney are often more expensive than the ill-fated package. The worst thing that threatens scammers is swearing over the phone at them, which is not so scary, especially if the customer is swearing, who yesterday brought them several tens of thousands of rubles on a silver platter. The scammers' task is to find as many naive people as possible and sell everyone their package at least once.
Unfortunately, unlike the same search engine optimization of websites or any programming, the ability to do something on social networks yourself has given rise to the misleading opinion that working on social networks is not such a serious undertaking, and it should not cost a lot of money. In fact, the key feature of high-quality SMM promotion is not only the knowledge of an SMM specialist gained in practice, but also significant labor costs, which does not allow one SMM specialist to manage dozens of accounts and groups. The implementation of one or another SMM strategy that brings real results takes more than one month and requires repeated adjustments during the work process. In general, good SMM is a long, routine process that occurs primarily manually.
I wouldn’t say that I see massive deception in the SMM market. Opaque practices bordering on fraud are more about the SEO market (where the visibility of activities is presented as complex work), RTB and CPA networks (where low-quality traffic is sold under the guise of high-quality traffic or is simply depicted in a report). In SMM, I rather see a large number of inexperienced contractors who do stupid things with the best intentions and thereby either do not help or harm clients. This happens because the barrier to entry into SMM is the lowest - hence the large number of beginners who make big bucks for clients’ money.
I will give examples of the most common nonsense.
For example, contractors often offer KPIs for the number of subscribers. But the number of subscribers in itself does not give anything; what is important is the involvement of each material, virality, etc. Roughly speaking, 500 people who are direct target audience and who “fumble” every post of yours are much better than 10,000, who when They subscribed to you for some unknown reason, but today they are silent. I’m not talking about bots, it seems that everyone has already realized that this is a dead end.
Another example of this nonsense is mass following. Beach Instagram and some other networks - promotion using automatic adding as a friend. While the site is new, it can work, although it smells bad. Now that every living user is adding a car wash, a beauty salon, and a cellulite remedy as friends every day, this tactic cannot be used under any circumstances. Don't stand on the same level as idiots.
Another common mistake is content that does not match the tone of the brand. A stream of entertaining postcards is good in a joke community and bad almost anywhere else. Nevertheless, beginners see that these formats are spreading well and begin to litter the feed with off-topic jokes. This is a consequence of working without a strategy.
There can be many examples of nonsense, but the root is always the same - contractors rushed to work without specifying for whom they were trying, without drawing up a plan, without delving into the customer’s business. How to protect yourself from such contractors? Ask them to show what they have already done, how planning is organized, what formats they offer and why, what metrics they use. For outsourced SMM to truly work, the contractor must understand the client very well and have the authority to speak on his behalf quickly and independently. The work of negligent agencies leads to the fact that clients, recalling negative experiences, begin to engage in micromanagement - they demand the approval of every comment, reports for every day, etc., thereby slowing down processes and killing the creative enthusiasm of sane contractors.
Marina Zak, head of SMM agency Web Step
Many of you have come across messages on VKontakte or Instagram that offer “only targeted” subscribers for 1000 rubles. Of course, these will be so-called bots, and the person from the “agency” will very quickly stop communicating. The worst consequence could be that your communities are blocked for some time or even forever for violating the rules of the social network. Unfortunately, many clients (especially during a crisis) find themselves in such stories. What forms of deception are most often used by negligent agencies? The most common is the promise of targeted subscribers for little money and in a short time. Which is basically impossible.
To avoid getting into a similar situation:
— be sure to look at the agency’s website or presentation, and also request cases. From them you can determine how long the agency has existed, what clients they have worked and are working with, what qualitative and quantitative indicators they have achieved;
— before providing you with a commercial offer, any professional agency will definitely ask you clarifying questions or ask you to fill out a brief. Most often, at the calculation stage, it is important to know: what are your business’s goals for promoting on social networks, what is your target audience and what is important to them, who your competitors are, etc.
— pay attention to the commercial offer - what are the promotion efficiency indicators, what is the forecast. High-quality promotion on social networks cannot be cheap!
- and of course, if possible, work only under a contract and try to meet with agency representatives in person before starting work.
In my opinion, careless agencies are really the “pain” of real SMM agencies. After experience of working with careless agencies, the client believes either that SMM is cheap, or that SMM does not work, and there are only fraudulent agencies around. Therefore, my colleagues from other agencies and I try to talk more often and in more detail about the principles and quality of work in social networks and show what effective promotion on social networks is. For example, using this article.
Alexander Korolev, SMM specialist at Internet marketing agency Top-Life
Usually, freelancers and agencies whom you find in Instagram direct messages or corporate email spam are deceived. It is there that they offer you to buy subscribers for pennies. For example, an ignorant businessman can acquire 5,000 new subscribers for a couple of thousand rubles. However, all subscribers purchased in this way are ordinary dead bots.
It is worth noting that most mediocre agencies value their reputation. After all, very often they become contractors of larger players. At the same time, the quality of services of small agencies is not inferior to the quality of large ones, and in some cases even exceeds it. For example, customer service for small agencies operates 24/7. For big players, everything is strictly from 9:00 to 18:00.
One of the most common forms of “cheating,” if you can call it that, is inflating KPIs and forecasts. This data is not recorded in the contract, but manipulation with it plays the role of a competitive advantage. For example, in SMM agency “A” a client is promised 50 orders for 150,000 rubles. Agency “B” will offer the client 100 orders for the same amount. The client agrees to the last offer, but will receive the same 50 orders as a result. Attempts to express dissatisfaction in this case are legally groundless - KPIs were not reflected in the contract. As a result, the agency loses the client, who leaves to look for the next contractor.
Working with freelancers is also fraught with losses. Nevertheless, many deal with them, ordering an increase in subscribers (through bots or offers) or working using gray promotion methods - inviting, or mass following. There are obvious disadvantages to this. Firstly, if you work without a contract, the deadlines may be missed or the work will be performed poorly. Secondly, if you abuse such “promotion” methods, sanctions may be applied to your community or account - removal of bots, restrictions on actions, or even a ban from the social network.
In some cases, the work of careless agencies and freelancers can influence the opinions of clients, ruining SMM in their eyes as an effective promotion channel. This can be corrected by communicating with competent specialists. Such specialists will be able to build an effective promotion strategy and justify it. If errors occur during the implementation of this strategy or the result does not meet the client’s expectations, it is necessary to correct the situation in the process of work, coordinating its necessary stages. The work should be built on a win-win principle. This will eliminate fraud on both the agency and the client’s part.
Elena Kupriyanova, director of SMM-direction Smart Media
Most often, small and young agencies - not all, we are now talking only about non-professionals - do not just deceive clients, but do not fulfill their obligations to customers. Careless agencies are only chasing money and the client’s name, and not the quality of their work. They are attractive to customers due to their low cost, but here lies the catch: it cannot be fast, cheap and high quality at the same time (remember the truism about “choose any two points”). Cheap agencies charge for the volume of work, but often lose in either speed or quality, and most often they fall short on both counts.
Another point that clients often encounter is the discrepancy between the commercial proposal and the promises that the agency makes at the pitch and reality. That is, you saw a great idea, a great strategic approach, and you really liked the person who presented the concept to you. But when the real work began, it turned out that the copywriter did not feel the brand and made mistakes, the creative was not involved in the work, the manager did not answer calls, and they sent bots to your groups, not real people. Of course, there is also another side, when a client buys a concept from a client, but begins to say “let’s cut it here, and do it differently here, but we don’t need this at all.” It is important to understand here that what is offered to you is most often a holistic approach, and it is almost impossible to achieve all the stated KPIs in the absence of certain elements of the concept. But that is another story.
In this regard, I advise the following. First, pay attention to the agency’s experience - not just cases, but the real work they are doing now. Secondly, get to know the working team before you start collaborating with the agency on the presented concept, look at a specific copywriter and targetologist. “You shouldn’t be chasing cheapness, priest!” as Pushkin said. This does not mean that you need to choose the most expensive offer, it means that you need to know the average cost of services in the market from agencies of different categories and understand that for five rubles it is impossible to bring a thousand people to a narrowly targeted group. If they promise you this, it means they are deceiving you. Third, get into it. It is clear that you hire an agency so that you don’t have a headache at least about SMM. But remember that the less you know about the service that the agency is selling you, the more opportunities there are to deceive you.
Clients often come to us and say that they are disappointed in one or another digital promotion tool. And I always say - you're not disappointed in the tool, you're disappointed in the contractor. Of course, it is very difficult to make a client “thaw” in relation to SMM when a careless contractor worked with him before you. A competent agency will always select the right tool for you in accordance with your business tasks, and will not sell you anything. Digital specialists, understanding that to solve your problems you need not SMM, but, for example, context, will tell you how context will help you, even if you initially came to this agency for SMM.
The most important indicator of a quality agency is that we delve into your goals and try to solve your problems, and not just make money for you.
Stella Rybnikova, head of the SMM department of the Penguin Benjamin digital agency
I’ll tell you about the most common mistakes that lead clients to careless agencies. At the stage of searching for a contractor, the client chooses a cheaper specialist. The result is poor quality work, pictures from the Internet. A competent SMM manager will not work for 3 thousand a month. In addition, you decided to contact an agency where specialists probably work. The deception may consist in the fact that the company does not have a full-time SMM manager, and it gives the order to freelancers, keeping a percentage for itself. The result may be, as in the first case, poor quality work.
To protect themselves, clients need to familiarize themselves with the cases and make sure that they belong to the contractor. It is not uncommon to fake portfolios and results. Also, don't limit yourself to communicating in writing. You need to make sure the specialist is competent. Make an appointment and personally discuss the details of cooperation. It is also important to ask for a media plan and monitor its implementation.
This way you can understand in advance what work will be done and adjust it in case of disagreement. Not all companies bother with a media plan and produce content in a chaotic, unstructured manner.
During the execution phase, the client may also face many dangers. Among them are the main ones: grabbing content from other groups, using low-quality materials (mostly photos), buying subscribers, poor advertising setup, including thoughtless wasting of the budget. Ask to see your personal advertising account and budget allocation. Nobody will give you access for reasonable reasons. If you are in another city, the screen sharing feature on Skype will help.
Do not forget also that some agencies may falsify screenshots of statistical reports. You can do anything in Photoshop! Don’t be lazy to track statistics on each social network yourself. Of course, due to unscrupulous performers, trust in the entire SMM sphere is undermined. Clients often come to us who have had bad experiences working with SMM managers. We have to restore their trust. To do this, we show our projects, statistics, develop a media plan, and offer online support 24 hours 7 days a week.
Some useful tips for beginners
Today it is difficult to find a business that does not have a presence on social networks or at least does not consider this promotion option. There are many reasons for this, the most important of which is the ability to reach specific segments of the target audience. In addition, in recent years, social networks have introduced a lot of new tools, for example, for creating storefronts or booking tickets, and continue to develop systematically. Today we will tell you what to do if using SMM seems appropriate to you, but you have no idea how to choose someone who will put this locomotive on the rails and control it.
Agency or freelancer?
Let's consider both options.
Advantages of contacting a private person:
Price. The main reason why freelancers are chosen rather than agencies is the lower price tag, plus the willingness to work with almost any budget
Flexibility. Freelancers, as a rule, do not rely on complex infrastructure in their work and are ready to adapt to the specifics and “wants” of their customers
Advantages of using an agency:
Reputational baggage. A business with a long history, as a rule, is sensitive to its accumulated reputation and strives in every possible way to ensure that all clients are satisfied
Transparency. It’s usually easier to “break through” an agency for cases and real reviews than freelancers
Regular reporting. Typically, this item is already included in the internal regulations of digital agencies by default.
Replaceability of employees. For example, if your manager falls ill, another will temporarily replace him, which reduces the likelihood of missed deadlines due to the human factor
Criterias of choice
Regardless of whether you are looking for an agency or a freelancer, pay attention to the following points:
Specialization. It is important that for the performer SMM is not an applied activity, but one of the main services. Agree, it’s difficult to learn how to build houses and treat arthritis equally well, especially in a short time, and for the sake of one client
Experience. Despite the fact that the SMM services market is relatively young, it is better to choose specialists with 3-5 years of experience. Social networks, like a new car, need to be felt, to understand how they react to certain actions, to literally feel at the cellular level the characteristics of their audiences. One or two years is not enough for this
Achievements. As a rule, the effectiveness of SMM specialists is assessed according to the KPIs initially approved with the customer. KPIs can be: the number of subscribers, the number of likes/shares on posts, the number of tickets booked or promo codes sold, etc. Don’t be lazy, study the cases of the future contractor, find out how he himself describes his successes. Usually, if there is something to be proud of, agencies post such cases on their own websites
Client POOL. The larger and more famous the brand, the higher the likelihood that the candidate you have chosen has high expertise. But it is worth keeping in mind that some agencies tend to embellish reality a little and include in the list of clients even those who were provided with very tiny, one-time services
Own pages on social networks. Does everyone remember the saying about the shoemaker and boots? Considering that the SMM business cannot boast of high margins, many performers (especially freelancers) do not have the resources (and sometimes the need) to regularly update their own pages. However, studying them will help you get an initial idea of the artist.
Reviews. It is important not only to understand the ratio of positive/negative reviews. Ideally, it’s worth asking former clients for details: whether it was easy for them to maintain communications with the contractor, whether he “went off the radar,” whether there were any problems with accepting work, etc.
Budgets and services
Agencies and freelancers face two different scenarios. The former often sell services in the form of ready-made packages, while freelancers are more inclined to create individual ones for a specific customer. According to experts, the average minimum budget that agencies are willing to work with is 25,000-40,000 rubles per month, freelancers - 5,000-10,000.
All agencies are conventionally divided into five price segments: Economy (budgets can be less than 25,000), Low (25,000-50,000), Medium (50,000-100,000), High (100,000 - 150,000) and Premium (over 150 000).
It is important not to confuse budgets and the cost of services, since in the first case it may mean not only the cost of the work done, but also the amount of money spent on promoting pages/posts (that is, paid to social networks).
The size of the budget primarily depends on the set of actions that need to be taken, as well as on the subject of the business and the characteristics of the client’s target audience.
A slightly less important factor is the geographic location of the SMM contractor. It is logical that the services of a Moscow specialist will cost more than, say, in Voronezh.
The minimum package, as a rule, contains the most basic services:
Content plan development
15-30 publications (posts) per month
Progress report/achieved KPIs
In more expensive packages (from 40,000-60,000 rubles per month and above), the following options may be found:
Visual design of pages
Dealing with Negative Feedback
Massfollowing
Video promotion (in particular on YouTube)
Content branding (watermarks on photos, unique hashtags, etc.)
Viral seeding at third-party sites, etc.
What to ask at a meeting
Before we tell you exactly where to look for contractors, we suggest you study one more small cheat sheet.
What you should find out from the contractor during a detailed discussion of the project and what to pay attention to at the first meeting:
Record for yourself whether the future contractor has prepared for the meeting with you. It’s a good sign if the day before he tried to form his own opinion about the future project, studied the current state of affairs (found your pages, made the appropriate notes)
Try to understand whether the contractor has his finger on the pulse of the industry. In SMM, as in SEO, the rules of the game change quite often, so it is extremely important to find an artist who regularly monitors trends and innovations. If you don’t know how to formulate a question, just ask about the latest changes in social media algorithms and what impact this has had. If they tell you right away what has changed over the past year, that’s great.
If you contact an agency, find out if you will have access to a direct contractor. This can greatly simplify life in case of urgent tasks.
Ask which achievements the future contractor considers most significant. As a rule, creativity is less important for business and statistics are more important. If a performer thinks exclusively in terms of the “beautiful” and “unusual” series, this is an alarm bell. Any creative is only good if it works, and if it works, then where are the indicators?
Where to look for contractors
Systematized information about agencies can be found in the SMM agency directory. Company cards contain a wide variety of data: from location and specialization to prices and professional awards received.
Those who find it difficult to make a choice in this way can be advised to hold a tender. To do this, you need to fill out a special form. Ideally, at the “Tell me more about the task in more detail” step, you not only insert a description of the project, but also your personal requirements for the customer (for example, their physical presence in your city, experience with specific social networks or topics, what you represent, etc. .).
After this, all you have to do is wait a couple of weeks (usually tender organizers set a date for summing up the results 2-3 weeks after the start of accepting applications) and then you can choose whose competitive application best suits your task and financial capabilities.
However, a company does not always need its own in-house specialist, and sometimes it is better to hire a specialized agency. Therefore, today I propose to talk about how to choose an SMM agency.
Before contacting an agency, you should clearly understand why you need promotion on social networks, and what goals you set for yourself. Ideally, have a marketing strategy that includes an SMM promotion strategy. Because the request: “We need something cool in SMM and as cheaply as possible” has not delighted a professional agency for a long time; only a freelancer or an agency that has 2.5 clients and half a year of experience in the market will answer such a request.
To summarize the above: determine for yourself why you need promotion on social networks and what goals you want to achieve.
What should you pay attention to when choosing partners among agencies?
- Specialization. Perhaps many will not agree with me, but I still think that it is difficult to sit on two chairs. You either do SMM, and your whole company lives just like that, or you somehow lose focus (and as a result miss trends, market innovations, etc.) if you are engaged not only in promotion, but also in outdoor advertising, etc. d. Therefore, I think that preference should be given to those who are exclusively engaged in promotion on social networks.
- Portfolio. A good agency should have . Usually you can find it on the agency’s website (I think there is no need to make a separate point about the presence of this very website in 2017) or you can request separately to be shown the projects that the agency worked with.
- Indicators of achieving goals. Since you have already decided on the goals and objectives of promotion on social networks, now you need to understand how to achieve and how to measure these goals. A good agency, having studied your strategy, will definitely recommend which metrics you should rely on in your work, and most importantly, they will explain why. If they name you a KPI and don’t explain why it is necessary, then the agency simply wants to choose easier indicators for itself, without paying attention to the client’s needs.
- Experience. Your future partner should have experience in promoting on social networks. Therefore, find out what kind of team will work on your project, look at the company’s blog, read what they write about, whether they understand what you need.
- Reviews. A good agency always has written or video reviews from clients about working with them. Now I’m not talking about screenshots from social networks or reviews, about how well they were trained in SMM in this agency. If you order promotion, then the reviews should be about this and with the real names of those who left this review and their contacts (phone numbers, e-mail). So that you can contact this person and question him in detail.
- Price. You should not choose your partners based on price. To be honest, I don’t even really want to dwell on this point and explain why cheap does not equal quality. The price criterion should be included last, when all other parameters are equal or conditionally equal.
P.S. I would also like to add that you should not choose an agency based on the criteria of working with your niches or competitors. This may seem very tempting; the agency has experience in your business and will show results faster. But two main questions arise: 1. Do you really think that you have no differences at all from your competitors and will immediately get their performance? 2. You understand that the developments made with your money will be used to promote your competitors?
We are in "The LAB", as a matter of principle, we do not work with direct competitors and do not take on businesses in the same niche for parallel work.
SMM agency is a fairly common business nowadays. Since there is a demand for SMM agencies, there are also offers. Every day a new agency opens and every day someone closes, unable to withstand the competition. How can you choose a reliable SMM agency in this market of SMM services, avoid falling for scammers, and get good results at an affordable price? This is exactly what our article is about today.
Types of SMM agencies
SMM agencies are different. Some people deal with websites and, a little, promotion on social networks (a popular service). Someone is engaged in mass following and already calls itself an SMM agency. And some generally take all orders from tenders and work with million-dollar budgets, covering the entire range of work in digital marketing. So, here are the types of SMM agencies that I highlight:
1. Single freelancer. For greater importance, a freelancer who works alone can call himself an SMM agency. As a rule, freelancers do not have a legal entity. Yes :)
2. Freelancer with a team. When a freelancer develops delegation skills, he hires more similar freelancers to join his team. Gives them orders at a percentage of each order. That is, this is a team of professionals, each working for himself. Here, as in paragraph 1, in most cases there is no legal entity. But there are also specialists who have already registered themselves as individual entrepreneurs and are working officially. As a rule, such an agency works remotely, without an office.
3. Mini SMM agency. When a specialist receives a sufficient flow of applications and produces good results, clients continue to cooperate. Resources for development in the office appear. This group includes a small agency with employees working in the company’s office in some city. The number of people is from 3 to 20. There is usually a legal entity and an accountant. We also belong to this type of agency. We have 8 people in our office, including an accountant. We work under contract with clients all over the world.
4. Large SMM agency. When an agency begins to expand its services to the full digital marketing cycle, it turns into a “tender agency” (when most orders are received through tenders). The company's staff can consist of 50 or 300 or more people. With branches in different cities and countries.
How to choose an SMM agency?
In order to choose an SMM agency, you need:
1. Decide on an advertising budget, which you are ready to allocate to promote your business.
The cost of work and the choice of type of SMM agency depend on the advertising budget. If the budget is small, then you should not approach top agencies with the desire to hear from them an inexpensive price tag.
2. Select the type of agency. Freelancing will cost less, others will cost more.
3. Study reviews and agency cases. In order to understand what the agency specializes in, what results it achieves and which companies trust it with their budgets, be sure to look at reviews and cases.
4. Research the reputation of the agency leader. Naturally, this point is not suitable for top agencies. It has its own directors and managers, but the owner may be different. Yes and... tenders)
5. Level of expertise. Often, an entrepreneur does not know which social network he needs to promote in the first place. In this case, he asks this question to the SMM agency. And this is how the agency manager justifies his proposal - this is important. Many people take clients to a specific social network in order to get more% of the advertising budget, and not for the fact that results can be achieved in this social network.
6. Reporting and work process. Always ask how reporting on your project will happen. On what days, what exactly will be in the report? Request a sample report.
7. Agreement. I recommend always entering into a contract. Experience shows that this is better than nothing. And you will be sure that you will not be scammed.
8. Result. In agency cases, look at what is considered a result. 1 application for 1000 rubles or 500 applications for 300 rubles? It is important.
Here is a short list of all the important points that need to be considered when choosing an SMM agency. Don’t forget that you don’t need to create illusions about the cheap cost of services and great results. The miser, as they say, pays twice.
You can see more useful articles and our cases on our agency’s website.
In whose capable hands should the social networks of a small/medium business or startup be placed?
The issue is ambiguous and controversial. Let's be clear from the very beginning - it is very difficult to choose the ideal candidate; each of the options under consideration has its own pros and cons. Let's look at the main advantages, disadvantages, and pitfalls of each of them.
How to choose a freelancer
Freelancer advantages:
1. Low price
In most cases, the fee for the services of an individual specialist is really small. In addition, in negotiations you can apply for an individual price tag and the provision of a personal discount.
2. Flexible approach
A freelancer is more loyal to all your, even sometimes absurd, requirements. It is easier for a private contractor to adapt to your needs and, if necessary, change something in the work.
3. Full immersion
Freelancers, as a rule, are less loaded with various projects, so they can afford to pay increased attention to each order, completely immersing themselves in the specifics of the client’s business.
Disadvantages of a freelancer:
1. Unreliability
He may simply give up on cooperating with you, get a job somewhere, move, go on vacation, etc. With alarming regularity, his grandmother may get sick, the lights may go out, or his laptop may break down. To avoid these pitfalls, you, as the customer, will have to carefully check the contractor to be sure that the task will be completed on time and at the proper level. This leads to the next minus.
2. Difficulty of control
A freelancer could easily not get in touch tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow you will find a dog instead of his VK account, as well as a disconnected phone. You separated the prepayment, but did not receive the services of an SMM specialist, and, by and large, there is no one to appeal to.
3. Lack of guarantees and unofficial payments
The freelance market has a persistent (often justified) negative stereotype: remote specialists miss deadlines, make mistakes, and abandon a project at the last moment. Let's be honest—responsibility is not a freelancer's strong point.
How to choose an SMM agency
Pros of an SMM agency:
1. Experts in their field
Agencies have good experience and a large number of cases; their SMM specialists understand their issue more deeply. A very pleasant moment for the customer is that such services can be written off for taxes.
2. Integrated approach
As a rule, the SMM department in an agency is a whole team of specialists. The department has a marketer, a creative designer, and a man with a tambourine who makes cool videos and photos. As a result, not just one specialist works on a task, but several.
3. Warranties
And finally, which is very important, the studios give guarantees and enter into contracts. And these services can always be written off on taxes.
Disadvantages of an SMM agency:
1. Price
This will be somewhat more expensive than the services of a freelancer, but also cheaper than hiring a full-time employee.
2. Regular interaction
An agency specialist is still not an internal employee; you will have to send him information weekly/daily, keep him updated on the events of your company, etc.
3. Speed
As a rule, you will not have access to the direct fulfiller of your order. All communications will take place through the project manager, which may somewhat affect the efficiency of work and lead to various kinds of misunderstandings. In addition, most agencies operate on standard business hours—lunches, weekends, and holidays.
Let's sum it up
Cooperation with a freelancer is always a Russian roulette, which can lead to both a significant increase in sales and a waste of money on an unscrupulous specialist. Cooperation with a trusted company will ensure the achievement of your goals. This is exactly the optimal result with a slight difference in the budget. If you want your project to receive maximum attention on social networks, if it is important for you to receive guarantees of achieving certain indicators, contact the agency.
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