Are you wondering how to improve your social media channels and considering professional help? Maybe you’re just curious about what working with a healthcare agency is like?
If you’re considering working with an agency but are reluctant because you’re not quite sure what to expect, allow us to shed some light.
In this article, we’ll let you in on everything you can expect, from the budget to the process, and how you can prepare to kick things off.
How an agency could help
Not every company needs the help of an agency. For some, their in-house team has all the capabilities needed for a successful marketing strategy, while others can supplement their team using freelancers.
For some companies, though, working with an agency can help them achieve better results from their social media strategy.
Social media is time-consuming. It involves lots of planning, content creation, and reporting. An agency can take on all of this work, freeing up time to be spent on other important aspects of the business.
Additionally, working with an agency allows access to team members with different specialities, such as strategists, copywriters, and designers.
You can still create amazing social media campaigns without these specialists, but they can certainly help to give a professional edge to your feeds.
Finally, agencies have a lot of experience to offer companies. They’ve already experimented to find out what works best and are likely always looking to keep at the top of their game, always striving to improve. This takes all the guesswork away from companies, so they’re more likely to see success earlier on.
Budget
Pricing is usually one of the biggest considerations when deciding to work with an agency, but this will vary from agency to agency.
Non-specialist agencies will probably offer lower prices but may need more input from you regarding your industry. Specialist agencies, with experience and knowledge in your area, are likely to charge more for what they do but can offer peace of mind over more general agencies.
In Medical Device, you need to make sure your agency has a good understanding of Medical Device marketing regulations to avoid any repercussions.
We’ve created a guide to social media pricing, which outlines everything included when working with an agency and the costs you can expect to pay.
The stages of delivering social media campaigns
When you work with an agency, you’ll be getting a lot more than last-minute ad-hoc posts (although there is room for that when needed). In fact, there’s a lot of planning that goes on behind the scenes before posts are even created, let alone uploaded.
3/6 month plan creation
The first step will usually be creating a plan. Agencies may differ on how long in advance they will plan for, but at Podymos, we use social media as a platform to build a story in your audience’s minds, so we tend to deliver 3- and 6-month plans. We also know that it takes time to build momentum on social media.
Content plans will usually be based on the topics, themes, or questions that are most important to your audience, as that’s what’s most likely to engage them. Sure, advertising the benefits of your device is important, but it won’t be as interesting to your audience as discussing the problems they face every day will be.
As a guide, only about 15% of your content should focus on your company; the rest should be about providing value for your audience.
The plan will usually include a brief description of each post and when it will be posted, as well as the type of visual. Will it be a video? Gif? Static image? All of that will be included in the initial plan.
Plans are sent out in advance so that you can check that you are happy with the post ideas. This offers you a chance to leave out any topics you’d rather not discuss.
The joy of working with an agency is that the majority of work is taken off your hands, leaving you free to get on with other things. You may be worried that the agency won’t fully understand what you want from your social media, which it’s important that you and your agency understand each other prior to starting work.
You can prepare for this by ensuring you are prepared to talk about the following topics:
Social media style creation
This stage of the process won’t be necessary for companies that already have a social media look, but for those that don’t, your agency will need to put together a guide based on your branding.
It’s important to do this because your posts need to be consistent in terms of how they look so that they are instantly recognisable by your audience. Being recognisable also means you’re memorable, which is an important step in building trust.
Your agency will obviously consult with you on the look, ensuring that you’re happy with the finished results.
Post creation
Once you have signed off on the post briefs and the look of your posts, it’s time for the agency to build your posts.
Typically, agencies will have copywriters and designers who have been briefed about your social media goals, branding, and general information about your company and device. They will then be able to build the separate components of the posts, bringing them together in one place for easy review.
For instance, copy and visuals (as well as other necessary information like word counts and hashtags) may be added to a PowerPoint, so that they can be easily checked.
Once quality-checked in-house by several team members, the posts will be sent to you for review. Hopefully, you’ll be happy with the posts and won’t need any changes, but if you do, your agency will be able to make those changes and send them to you once again for review.
Scheduling posts
Nothing will ever be posted until you’re completely happy with it, but once that stage is reached, your agency will probably choose to schedule your posts using a tool like Hootsuite or Buffer. This means that posts will always go out on time, and you don’t have to worry.
To do this, your agency will need access to your social media accounts, but they will be able to talk you through how to do this.
Once all of your posts are scheduled, you can sit back, and your agency can get started on your next round of social media posts, repeating the process again.
Reporting
Your agency will be able to produce monthly reports for you on how your social media (and any other channels they are helping you with) are performing.
This will allow your agency to see what is working and where there need to be adjustments to optimise your future social media posts.
For example, if posts on a certain topic are performing well, your agency might recommend doing more posts on that topic.
They’ll also be able to look beyond the channels you’re posting on to tell you how social media is helping your overall marketing strategy. For instance, they can check if your posts are driving traffic to your website to get you conversions – which is probably what you actually want to achieve, rather than just gaining followers, which is how you will go about achieving your overall goal.
In our medical device marketing podcast on the top social media mistakes, we discuss how important it is to look at metrics that tell you how well social media is performing for your marketing as a whole, rather than just how well you’re performing on social media.
How to prepare?
The joy of working with an agency is that the majority of work is taken off your hands, leaving you free to get on with other things.
You may be worried that the agency won’t fully understand what you want from your social media, which is why it’s important that you and your agency understand each other prior to starting work.
You can prepare for this by ensuring you are prepared to talk about the following topics:
Who is your audience?
What are the topics that interest them? What are the problems they face on a daily basis?
Who are your competitors?
What are other companies in your area doing on social media? Are there any accounts that you find particularly interesting?
What should the posts be about?
What are the topics and themes that your audience cares about? What are the questions that you’re asked by customers the most?
What are your goals?
Are you looking to raise awareness of your brand? Are you hoping to gain leads? This will affect the social media plans.