Many agencies today are offering Social Media services (if they aren’t they need to). But for many of them it is often hard to architect the strategy since so much of the knowledge of ‘who to go to’ for ‘what type of Social Media conversation’ is very internal knowledge.
A good Social Media strategy starts with looking at what Conversations you want to engage in, what Objectives you have for engaging in those conversations, what Strategy you will have to fulfill on those objectives and finally what Technology you will use to get there.
In order to plan that out for a client, the agency can work with them to get a sense for the Conversations a brand should be engaged in, what Objectives they should have for engaging in these conversation, what strategy will best fulfill on your objective and what technology to use. But where Agencies typically are challenged is on the “who” part of the equation – “who” will be the person best suited to represent the brand for a particular type of conversation.
Agencies have to get internally savvy fast to navigate the waters of an organization and this typically doesn’t happen overnight. Or perhaps they need to find the “super connector” within the organization who can help them articulate who to go to as point of contact for those conversations.
So when you are working with an outside agency on helping you with your Social Media strategy the best place to focus your efforts to help them is in the identification and recruitment of strong personas who can represent your brand in some very specific conversations.