Social Media Agency vs In-House: Which Is Right for Your Brand?

There's a slightly strange assumption in marketing that brands eventually have to choose a side.

Agency or in-house.

In reality, some of the strongest social teams we work with use both.

The question isn't really which model is better.

It's which combination gives your brand the strategy, creative ability, platform knowledge and capacity it actually needs.

In-house teams have something agencies can't replicate

Proximity.

An internal team lives inside the business.

They understand the products, politics, customers and conversations happening behind the scenes.

They're close to the people who know interesting things.

They can spot moments that an external team might never know existed.

That's incredibly valuable.

Where internal teams sometimes struggle is breadth.

Social now encompasses strategy, video, design, copy, community, creators, paid media, reporting and constantly changing platform knowledge.

Expecting one Social Media Manager to be brilliant at all of that is a huge ask.

Agencies bring breadth and perspective

A good social agency gives you access to a broader range of specialists without having to hire each discipline individually.

There's also value in being outside the business.

Internal teams naturally inherit assumptions about how things are done.

An agency should occasionally be the person asking:

“Why?”

Why can't we do that?

Why does approval work this way?

Why are we still creating this format when the audience stopped responding six months ago?

That outside perspective can be useful.

Outsourcing doesn't mean disappearing

Agency relationships tend to struggle when the brand hands over the social passwords and expects to return six months later to millions of followers.

The agency still needs access.

Information.

People.

Feedback.

Trust.

Some of the best content opportunities exist inside the business, and the agency needs a way to find them.

Shaka in practice

We strike this balance of working with an existing internal team through our client relationship with Jura and Tamnavulin whisky. 

Owned by Whyte & Mackay, both brands have distinct identities, tones of voice and direction that are led by their brilliant internal teams. 

Brand marketers that are experts in what makes each whisky brand special, and stand out from the crowd in a saturated industry rich with heritage. 

We work closely with them to help facilitate, guide and bolster their campaigns. 

This can be through providing external input on a long-term social strategy, to leading photo shoots and sourcing the equipment, models and fine details that make their brand world come to life on set.

 We give our clients the time and space to do what they do best: deciding what’s best for their brand. Through shared skills and expertise in our industry, and theirs. 

often the best answer is both

Internal teams can bring deep organisational knowledge and access.

Agencies can bring specialist skills, additional capacity and external perspective.

The exact balance will look different for every company.

The important thing is that your audience never feels the organisational structure behind it.

To them, there's only one brand.