Why Small Businesses Need a Social Media Agency
Should small businesses hire a social media agency?
Small businesses really only have two choices — maintain an in-house social media team or work with a dedicated social media agency to make the most of what these platforms have to offer.
While an in-house team provides businesses with greater control over their online presence, it’s also an approach that requires significant resources. It can be challenging for smaller businesses to manage and maintain social media teams effectively.
Why Small Businesses Need a Social Media Presence
Not too long ago, small businesses relied on fresh-out-of-college interns with little life experience to handle all their social media. But as the world’s biggest businesses, brands — and even world governments — reap the benefits of social media’s reach, minimum-wage interns have made way for massive dedicated teams.
What are these benefits?
Well, according to 2024 data, 83% of marketers found that social media marketing results in more brand awareness, 65% were convinced it resulted in more leads, while 73% found that it increased traffic to respective landing pages.
As these figures start impacting bottom lines, companies are increasingly willing to invest more into building robust social media teams. The global social media marketing spend has skyrocketed over five years, increasing 140% between 2019 and 2024.
Social Media Agency vs In-House Marketing
Most small businesses opt for one of two options for their social media needs.
In-house teams are a prominent option — mostly due to the fact that businesses believe it spares them the high costs of hiring an agency. Many small companies instead end up diverting resources to hiring several employees who take over crucial tasks — from strategizing campaigns to targeting paid posts. This could require hiring anywhere from 2-10 employees, which for a small business, is not insignificant.
An external agency, on the other hand, comes ready with a team of professionals who do this for a living. These experts don’t just live and breathe social media, but are well-versed in other marketing areas, such as public relations, or search engine optimization — and provide all these services for a fixed fee.
And that’s just the beginning. There are several more crucial differences between in-house vs outsourced social media management:
In-House Teams | Social Media Agency | |
| Expertise | In-house teams develop a deep understanding of the brand, its vision, and how to execute specific campaigns | Social media agencies hire teams of professionals who have diverse skill sets and experience working with companies across industries. |
| Costs | Compact in-house teams are more cost-effective than agencies. However, the size of the team may also limit how much you can really achieve | Agencies cost more initially, but give you a lot more in return. Dedicated social media agencies deliver results and have expertise to execute a range of crucial tasks |
| Scalability | The only way to scale an in-house team is to hire more personnel, and divert more resources to them | Social media agencies are more flexible depending on your needs, as they can simply assign more professionals to your project |
| Tools | In-house teams generally have a limited knowledge of analytics tools and software | Social media agencies are use a wide range of advanced tools and software to optimize and monitor campaigns |
Resource Management | Business owners have more efficient social media teams, but have less resources to dedicate to other areas | Frees up internal resources to focus on other pressing requirements — such as product development, or customer service |
Accountability | In-house teams are rarely held accountable, since replacing contractual employees is so expensive | External teams can be held more accountable for a lack of results since they’re specifically paid to achieve pre-decided results |
| Adaptability | In-house teams may lack the motivation or resources to keep up with changing algorithms and trends | Dedicated agencies invest heavily in upskilling employees, ensuring every member of the team is up to date on the latest trends |
The Benefits of Hiring a Social Media Agency
With these differences in mind, here are some of the most prominent advantages of hiring a full-service agency for small businesses.
Expertise That Drives Results
Anyone can create a social media page and hit publish — but this is hardly enough for small businesses to succeed. What these operations really need is an additional pair of hands that helps them guide messaging and generate meaningful engagement.
This is where a dedicated agency comes in. Social media professionals are well-versed in the intricacies of various platforms, audiences, and industries — as well as the tools and methodology required to convert posts into actual sales.
When compared to an in-house team, social media agencies drive tangible results — regardless of changing algorithms, platform features, and global trends.
More Data, More Consistency
Going viral may seem like a big win at first, but most marketing experts agree that consistency is worth a lot more in the long term. While both in-house teams and social media agencies can help maintain this consistency, there’s one key difference between the two — the use of data. Social media agencies ensure that posts aren’t just driven by the flavor of the season, but result from successful campaigns across industries.
By identifying and setting key performance indicators, pouring over numbers presented by analytics tools, and using this data to optimize future campaigns, they allow for more data-driven decisions, and as a result, a lot more consistency.
Skills Beyond Social Media
While small businesses need social media to get the word about their goods and services — it forms only one part of a more comprehensive marketing strategy. Despite how adept your in-house team is at creating and maintaining social media profiles, that’s where their contribution ends. A dedicated agency, meanwhile, brings professionals with more comprehensive marketing knowledge, including how to integrate aspects of SEO, PR, or influencer campaigns into your campaigns.
More Accountability, Less Pressure
For many small businesses, in-house teams are essentially just made up of employees who are expected to do double the work. While this may result in some cost-savings initially, it doesn’t allow you to push for better results — unless you’re willing to invest in more dedicated employees. A social media agency, on the other hand, functions with a sword hanging over their heads — excel, or risk losing out on a crucial client.
Long-Term Cost-Effectiveness
Tight budgets are one of the most-cited reasons keeping small business owners away from hiring full-service social media agencies. With so many priorities to account for, investing in social media is often seen as an unnecessary overhead. But, more often than not, adopting this short-term view of your finances spells disaster.
Consider, for instance, the costs of maintaining in-house teams. In between paying salaries, health insurance, and relevant tools, you’ll soon find the costs adding up. So, while the cost of a social media agency for small businesses may be a little higher initially, the boost in conversions and brand awareness makes up for it in the long-run.
All things considered, a social media agency gives small businesses a competitive edge they sorely need. The right agency can help you shine over businesses that have been in the game for a lot longer and have more resources on their side.
How Social Media Agencies Help Small Business Marketing
Contrary to popular belief, a social media agency offers a lot more than simply creating and uploading posts. What exactly does this team do? And how will they help improve your bottom lines? Here are some prominent areas of expertise it brings to the table.
Giving Your Brand a Voice
For a small business, getting noticed is a mammoth task — especially when up against organizations with double the resources. A social media team makes up for this disadvantage through clever strategizing. They understand how to position your brand, and how to give your organization a voice that’s most relevant to the audience demographics you’re targeting. This doesn’t just result in more engagement, but impacts the most crucial metric of them all — conversions.
Social Media Management
While coming up with broader strategies may seem like a mammoth task, the real trick to mastering social media is consistency. Uploading tasks regularly, accounting for special days, highlighting relevant offers, and engaging with your audience all cost time, money, and resources — but are crucial components of a successful social media strategy. A third-party agency will take over all these tasks, helping you focus on solving customer problems and creating better products.
Execute Paid Campaigns
Small businesses need paid advertising to promote their goods and services — especially during the initial stages when their follower counts are still in the single digits. This involves more than just throwing money at the problem. In fact, when paid campaigns are executed well, they are one of the most affordable solutions for small businesses — seeing as they target only relevant audiences, based on their location or likelihood to buy a product or need a service. A social media team can help you differentiate between campaigns that attract more followers and those that target actual potential customers.
Influencer Marketing
Last year, influencer marketing became the most coveted advertising channel — with global spend expected to touch almost $267 billion by the end of 2025. This is an incredibly high figure, and one that highlights just how crucial influencers are in helping businesses of all sizes succeed. A social media agency can help small businesses leverage the power of influencers — from identifying appropriate trendsetters to devising campaigns to handling payments and other logistical issues.
Identifying and Leveraging Trends
In 2024, short form video continued to be the biggest trend across social media platforms. Algorithms across Tik Tok, Meta and Youtube favored the format, and pushed videos higher on users’ social media feeds.
For a small business with in-house teams, adapting to this sudden change, and producing significantly more videos would have been a struggle. However, dedicated agencies don’t just have various teams ready in the wings, they identify similar trends early on and ensure that you stay ahead of the curve.
Monitoring and Reporting
These days, monitoring the effectiveness of social media campaigns has become a science — with dozens of free and paid tools helping social media teams study crucial metrics and improve their output. A social media agency isn’t just familiar with these analytics and reporting systems — they know how to use the data to their advantage and devise smarter campaigns that give you a competitive edge. This is crucial because it isn’t just enough for small businesses to have a social media presence — but to leverage it to sell more goods and services.
How to Pick the Right Agency
With all of this said, there are two sides to every story. There are both pros and cons of hiring a social media agency, with one of the major disadvantages being that you’re working with a team that essentially has no stake in your success.
To avoid spending big on substandard results and ensure that your agency is the most appropriate partner in this process, here are some pertinent questions worth asking:
*How dedicated is the agency to your cause? Going through the agency’s previous testimonials can give you an idea of how committed teams are to their clients.
*What skills do they bring to the table that an in-house team doesn’t? A social media agency must have advanced systems in place to create, monitor, and maintain profiles — or there’s no point in having them on board at all.
*How open are they to feedback? Once again, testimonials can give you an indication of how well an agency understands and incorporates your needs.
*How well is the agency regarded by its peers? This is a crucial factor that many small businesses don’t account for. Agencies that are regarded highly by its peers are likely to be more updated on trends and are considered industry leaders.
*And finally, how well does the agency integrate with your company culture? An agency halfway across the world may offer better rates — but will they be as understanding of your audience’s needs? Or as motivated to deliver?
Why Small Businesses Trust Epic Owl
For small businesses across the United States — and the rest of the English speaking world — Epic Owl isn’t just a social media agency, but a partner that grows, adapts, and evolves with your needs and requirements.
Over the years, our team has worked with nearly 1,500 satisfied clients, leveraging over 15 years of combined experience to nurture long-lasting connections with our clients.
When you work with us, we guarantee 5X growth for all small and medium sized businesses — and our near perfect ratings on both Upwork and Clutch are proof that we deliver. Still not sure if we’re the right fit? Why don’t you go ahead and schedule a consultation with us to learn more about how we can help your social media shine.
As for the initial question: Should small businesses hire a social media agency? When working with a team like Epic Owl, the answer is a clear and emphatic, yes.