Everyone has figured out that social media is a big deal. Even the older generations have joined the big sites – my own nan takes great pride in being on ‘The Facebooks’ and makes inappropriate comments on last weekend’s photos.

But when it comes to promoting your own business, the question is: can you do it all by yourself or should you pay an agency to handle it for you?

Let’s take a look at what you have to gain through social media marketing, how Adzooma can help you and why agencies could be in trouble.

New kids on the social block

In the timeline of marketing, social media is still relatively new. Social media marketing is stumbling on its feet like a newborn calf compared to tried-and-tested traditional advertising methods.

This is also true for the agencies that have suddenly popped up to meet the demand.

But does the quick way they’ve constructed their offering mean that they’re quickly becoming outdated? Social media marketing trends change so quickly that it’s hard work to stay up to date.

That’s not to say social media marketing agencies are dead – but they are in danger of falling behind. Their doors are open more to bigger businesses rather than one-man-bands.

So, if you don’t have a scooby doo about social, but it feels excessive to rope in an agency, then where do you go?

The potential of social

Social media marketing offers huge potential. 1.59 billion people, on average, log onto Facebook every day. That’s a massive audience which you’ll struggle to access elsewhere.

But harnessing this potential is hard work. And it’s ongoing. You can’t just bang some stuff on Facebook, retweet some things on Twitter and then abandon it for months. You need a marketing strategy, and you need patience.

That’s the disconnect between engaging on social media and doing it well. Social media agencies fill this gap nicely and offer an easy way to be hands-off whilst seeing results.

The major pitfall is that they’re not cheap. Costs can quickly add up and if you’re a small business, you’re unlikely to have the money just lying around. Whilst you can determine your own budget for social, there’s usually a base fee for these services.

In comparison, the DIY option is a lot cheaper but comes down to whether you have the time or not.

The growing popularity of DIY social media marketing

The option of managing your own socials is increasingly popular.

Whether it’s for you depends on what your skillset is. If you pick things up quickly, have a natural inclination for creating content and thinking strategically, it can be fairly easy for you to set things up yourself.

But, if you’re running your business single-handedly, and don’t have time to sneeze then perhaps stop reading and go and ring one. Even the best social media marketing tips won’t help you.

It’s fair to say we all know how to use social media, with 3.2 billion of us on it every day. So when it comes to social media marketing for small businesses, everyone thinks it’ll be easy.

Many don’t think there’s a big jump between using it to promote your life and using it to promote your business. People are setting up business pages, sharing it with family and friends and seeing varying degrees of success.

But this isn’t what it’s all about. The 1.59 billion people logging in aren’t going to be friends with your friends. This is where building ad campaigns help you.

It’s a learning curve, but there are plenty of social media marketing tools out there to help you. And the benefits of social ads can be massive once you get them right.

Facebook Ads – the perfect social marketing tool?

Paid advertising on sites like Facebook gets your business in front of the right audiences.

The benefits of using marketing agencies are that they have the knowledge and experience to optimise your campaigns. This means they should be using your budget cost-effectively and getting the most leads for your money – if they’re good at what they do.

If you’re managing things yourself, how do you know if you’re doing things well?

Optimisation tools like Adzooma are designed to make social media marketing easy for businesses, big and small. Our platform makes it quick to optimise your Facebook and Google Ads campaigns with just a few clicks. It highlights where you can save money and identify areas where you can make improvements in seconds.

With these social media marketing tools out there, there’s less of a need for a full marketing agency. They’re not accessible to smaller businesses and some of the biggest brands are dropping off the social sphere entirely.

These tools coupled with the wealth of guides and information out there means that putting together a social media strategy is no longer as daunting as it once was. After all, no one should know your customers better than you do.

Can you trust social media marketers?

The internet is littered with social media marketing tips.

People who don’t even know the definition of marketing are now full-time influencers. It’s increasingly easy for people to label themselves as social media marketing experts without much experience, which makes it difficult to know who to trust.

If you decide to outsource to a social media marketing agency, here are a few things you should look for:

• Do they split test? 

What do they make decisions on? Gut feelings or hard data? If you’re investing your money into a professional service, you want to be sure you’re paying for someone who keeps their finger on the pulse.

• Do they practice what they preach?

Have a look at what their social pages look like. If they’re doing theirs well, they’ll look after yours.

• Do they promise fast results? 

If it feels like they’re overpromising, they probably are. You might want to look elsewhere. The true test is being patient enough to see long term results, and they’re worth the wait.

So, is this the end of social media marketing?

Social media marketing agencies are still very much alive, but their audience is becoming narrower. To survive, they need to find a way to support small businesses with small budgets.

Adzooma helps bridge the gap between the DIY method and agency expertise. Using a social media marketing tool for Facebook Ads means you get total control, your campaigns are optimised correctly and you’re getting the customers you want.

However you do it, make the most out of your social media marketing strategy.