SMM is an integral part of any business. Everyone wants to increase their brand awareness and increase interest in the product. Therefore, companies often ask themselves the question: to hire an SMM-specialist in the state or to outsource?

Pavel Belchenko, founder of the Tesla Target SMM agency, talks about the main advantages and disadvantages of full-time employees, agencies and freelancers.

Specialist on staff

When to hire a specialist
When the budget is tight.
Hiring an SMM on the staff will also be the right decision when you have a relatively small budget and it is too expensive to contact the agency.

On average, the salary of an SMM specialist in the state is 25-30 thousand rubles, depending on the functionality. In Moscow and St. Petersburg, SMMs receive about 40-50 thousand.

When it is necessary to perform many tasks at once.
Blogs and brand special projects require promotion. Therefore, we immediately need multidisciplinary employees: a designer, a content manager, a targetologist.

Of course, you can contact the agency, but in the state the approvals will go faster thanks to constant interaction with the employee. It will be faster to publish a photo report from the event that has just passed than to send it to an outsourcing employee.

There is also an option to hire a specialist who will understand SMM in general and delegate tasks to different companies (designers, for example).

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When there are resources for a new department of the company.
As a large brand with a sufficient budget, you can hire an entire department of SMM specialists.

The constant interaction of employees with each other will reduce the time it takes to complete tasks. In emergency situations, you will not need to wait for a response from the agency, you can solve the problem yourself.

When you need to understand the specifics of the business.
A staff member has a better understanding of the specifics of your business. He will quickly understand the processes of the company.

“The in-house SMM manager is armed with a proper understanding of the product and knows what benefits need to be shed. If marketing is in order, and the SMM manager is not suddenly called upon to save the world on his own, it is worth carefully considering the in-house option, "says Ilya Tugushev, former marketing director of Sletat.ru and 585gold.


Cons of an SMM on the staff
Defocus.
Sometimes one specialist works on several areas at once: for example, he writes to the company's blog and maintains social networks at the same time. Due to the uneven distribution of time, the work of the SMM-boxer can be ineffective.

He can also turn out to be a great designer, but absolutely not know how to set up ads.

An on-staff specialist can be expensive.
You need to take care of a separate workplace and a social package. Plus, you may need additional training.

To control a full-time employee, you need competencies.
If the head of the marketing department or the business owner does not understand the specifics of SMM, then it will be difficult for him to control the employee and understand the effectiveness of advertising activities.

This raises the question of how an SMM person meets all the requirements, has the necessary skills and abilities.

This is what Dmitry Lyubimtsev, founder of the telegram channel about web development We Don't Throw, thinks: “At least one quarter you need to work with an SMM agency to understand the kitchen from the inside, to build a vector for the company's development. In parallel, you can look for an SMM-boxer in the state. Or arrange with the agency to take a little mentorship over a young specialist in the state. "

“The client pays extra for training the employee, and the agency, in turn, chews up all the processes for the SMM-manager. This will help him to quickly grow as a specialist and join business processes, ”adds Dmitry.


Outsourcing

When to work with an SMM agency
When you need a guaranteed result.
Specialists work in SMM studios, behind whom there are many successful cases. This is not one person, but a whole team.

As a rule, agencies have an internal training system that allows them to increase the expertise of their employees. In addition, you conclude a contract that guarantees the fulfillment of obligations and quality work.

When you do not want to go deep into the control of work.
Cooperation with an agency will relieve you of unnecessary burden. There will be no need to control the work of the SMM manager, the account or project manager will be responsible for this. The specialist will send you reports on which you will track the work.

When you feel the need to delegate authority.
The staff already has a content manager who deals with social networks, but there is no competent targeting specialist. It would be more logical to order targeted advertising from an agency, without distracting your employee from performing their direct duties.

“For specific industries, for example, pharma, it is important to have a content manager on staff who understands all the details and specifics of work. It is also a clear plus that being a part of the team it is easier for such a manager to convey the values ​​of the company, ”says Maria Shilova, Deputy Director of Trade Marketing for BTL Communications at Ozon Healthcare LLC.

At the same time, in terms of promotion (targeting, working with bloggers), it is more logical to work with an agency in order to be able to cooperate with specialists in their field, ”Maria explained.


Cons of working with an SMM agency
It is more difficult for an agency to understand some of the company's internal processes.
The agency needs time to study the specifics of the work, and the company needs time to realize whether it is possible to share confidential information: about the number and quality of applications, sales and the ultimate profitability of advertising.

Agency service price.
For small and medium-sized businesses, working with an agency can be too expensive.

For example, for a range of services for brands, including strategy and management, you will pay 60-80 thousand rubles, and for one service you will have to pay 20-30 thousand rubles.

Agencies have a large flow of orders.


“They work with several clients at the same time. One project can be given more time and less time to another, "says Ilya Tugushev, former marketing director of Sletat.ru and 585gold.

He explains: “The choice must be consistent with the goals and resources of the company. The main argument in favor of full-time SMM is the knowledge of the brand from the inside, the agency's trump card is the regular production of content based on expertise. When hiring an SMM agency, the brand does not get a lone hero, but experienced fighters from the crowd. The agency understands how to communicate with the audience and has a finger on the pulse. "

“A good find would be a mix of a digital manager and an agency. This is a buffer zone between SMM expertise and brand awareness. The manager communicates the strategy and monitors execution while the agency completes tasks and creates relevant content through the brand's optics, ”adds Ilya.


When to work with a freelancer
When you want to save money.
Freelance services are cheaper than working with an agency. On average, such a specialist takes 15-20 thousand for a complex with community management and advertising for a project. Therefore, if you have a small budget and it is important to start SMM with minimal investment, working with a remote performer is your option.

When you have a one-time task.
A freelancer can complete a small one-time order faster. In some cases, a specialist is able to quickly respond to the task, in contrast to an agency whose work is built according to a clear schedule and which cannot always quickly fulfill a small order.

Cons of working with a freelancer
The problem with official payments.
Freelancers often do not have a registered legal entity, so they will have to figure out how to pay for work in tax reporting.

In addition, if you have not entered into an agreement for the provision of services with an SMM, then there is no guarantee that the specialist will not disappear without explaining the reasons.

There are no quality guarantees.
Another fear is to face inexperienced specialists. They can list the cases of other agencies for their own. For example, cases, corporate identity, even the name are often stolen from us - they used our name for the telegram channel.

To show their effectiveness, young SMMs are engaged in cheating. As a result, you are happy not with a large number of real subscribers, but with a lot of bots.

Also, a freelancer can have a large flow of orders. He immediately deals with everything: content posting, financial issues, and so on. This can affect the quality of the work.


If a freelancer leads two or three projects, such an “integrated approach” is normal practice. If there are more of them, the probability of jambs is higher.

It cannot be said unequivocally which is more effective: an employee on the staff or on an outsourced one. Each option has its own pros and cons. It all depends on the tasks, budget and other factors that were described above.


Remember the important ratio: fast / cheap / high quality. Image courtesy of the author

How to get the maximum
Note the main differences in work between a full-time employee, a freelancer, and an agency.

The staff member always understands the specifics of the product in more depth and can quickly solve urgent tasks. But there is a risk that the specialist will work ineffectively due to the large number of diverse tasks.
Working with an SMM agency will immediately give you a team of specialists who will comprehensively approach the promotion. But it is more difficult for agencies to understand the company's processes and, as a rule, this is the most expensive option in terms of SMM promotion.
It is worth contacting freelancers if you have a small budget. Also, a freelancer can respond faster to a task than an agency. On the other hand, here the most risks are to stumble upon an unscrupulous contractor.