What to look for in a social media management company

I’ve been on both sides of this. Before Social with Ryan became an agency, I worked in-house, then freelance while building the portfolio of clients that eventually became this business. I’ve seen how this industry operates from the inside, including the gap that can open up between what gets promised on a sales call and what actually gets delivered once the contract’s signed.

So this isn’t a generic checklist copied from somewhere else. It’s what I’d actually tell a friend who was trying to find a social media management company, UK-based or otherwise, to manage their business’ social channels.

Find out who’ll actually manage your social media pages

Most social media management companies will put someone experienced on the call when they’re trying to win you over. But what happens after that varies. 

Sometimes the day-to-day work goes to a junior account executive managing a dozen accounts at once and the person who pitched you never touches your account again.

I’m not saying that’s automatically a dealbreaker, but you should know what you’re getting before you sign anything. Some agencies operate on a model that’s sometimes called ‘burn and churn’: bring clients in steadily, lose them just as steadily, and keep the pipeline full enough that it doesn’t matter.

If a provider can’t tell you who specifically will be working on your account, it’s worth probing.

How we do it at Social with Ryan

At Social with Ryan, I work directly with each client myself with support from a small team, from the strategy through to the posts going out. In short, I become your social media department, but outsourced. 

That way, you’re paying for someone with 15 years experience managing social media for businesses and knows your specific business properly, rather than a rotating cast of people relearning it every few months.

Check whether they understand your business, or just churn out content

A lot of providers run on templates – a few onboarding questions and your business gets slotted into a content calendar that looks a lot like all their other clients’. The posts go out on schedule and the boxes get ticked.

But, the results may fall short of expectations.

When I work with any new client, I take time to understand the business early on, not just the industry it sits in. With Houghton Hams, that meant getting to know the people running the business as well as the products they sell. It shows up in the content and it shows up in the results.

And that’s something to look for when picking a social media agency. Ask how they’d approach your first month and what it involves. Their answer should involve an onboarding phase where the agency gets to know your industry, business and target market. 

Ask whether social media is their specialism

Plenty of agencies offer social media management as one service among several, sitting alongside web design, SEO, paid advertising, and branding. 

There’s nothing wrong with that as a business model, but it often means social media gets whichever team member has spare capacity that week – rather than an expert genuinely focused on it.

If social media is core to what a company does, you’ll usually hear it in how they talk. Do they have real opinions about recent platform changes and what’s actually working right now, or does it feel like one of ten things they could just as easily talk you through? 

Weighing up an in-house specialist versus outsourcing

The same question is worth asking if you’re weighing up signing a specialist social media agency on a retainer versus bringing someone in-house.

Look for proof, not promises

Anyone can promise to grow your following and improve engagement. What actually matters is whether they can show you real numbers from real clients, ideally ones working in a similar space to you.

A couple of results I’m proud of: Bewiched Coffee’s social presence generated 3.2 million impressions and 240,000 engagements over 18 months, alongside a 38% increase in followers. Shoosmiths’ senior communications manager described the impact on their social media as transformative, on top of the training we delivered to help their team use LinkedIn effectively for business development. If a provider can’t point you to specific, verifiable results for businesses similar to yours, it’s a fair question to ask why not.

Understand the contract before you sign

Most social media management packages in the UK are sold as rolling monthly retainers rather than fixed-term projects, and that’s usually the right structure – social media is a long game. The plan that makes sense in month one often needs revisiting by month six, once you can see what’s actually resonating with your audience.

Many of my own client relationships are now well over two years old. None of them have stayed static. They’ve evolved as the businesses have grown and their goals have shifted, with the strategy reset along the way rather than left running on autopilot.

Before you sign, check the notice period and how easy it is to step away if it’s not working out. A provider confident in their work shouldn’t need to lock you into something rigid to keep you. 

If LinkedIn is the priority, ask about that specifically

Social media management means different things depending on the platform, and LinkedIn works differently to Instagram or Facebook. It’s slower, more relationship-led, and far more personal. You’ll also find that growth comes from individual profiles and genuine conversations rather than brand pages alone.

If LinkedIn and personal branding is a priority for you and your business, ask specifically how a provider approaches LinkedIn management and whether it’s part of their core offer.

Get a feel for how you’ll actually communicate

Day-to-day communication matters more than it sounds when you’re comparing options. 

Will you have a direct line to the person doing the work, or will requests go through a ticketing system and get picked up by whoever’s free? 

How often will you actually speak, and what does reporting look like in practice, beyond a screenshot of follower counts?

These questions are worth asking about before you sign – the answer could be the difference between a provider that feels like part of your team and one you occasionally hear from.

Weighing up your social media management options?

I’m always happy to talk through what good looks like for your business, whether or not that ends up being us.

Get in touch and we’ll give you a straight answer.