Here’s my prediction for 2018: more and more companies will take social media and digital marketing management in-house.
Reason 1: the supply of people who can manage social/digital continues to increase. Ten years ago, that was not the case. Smart agencies hired people who had the skills or trained staff to learn. Some people even started their own agencies. In either case, agencies not only provided the social/digital consulting, they also provided staffing services to companies.
As supply catches up to demand, companies are able to hire their own social/digital experts (for cheaper and cheaper, as supply continues to increase) and rely less on agencies for staffing.
Reason 2: social/digital requires real-time engagement. For example, it takes too much time for someone from an agency to write a response on Twitter, get approval from a supervisor and then get approval from the client to post it. Companies can respond more quickly if social/digital management is done in-house.
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What does this mean for agencies? Our roles are evolving. We’re going to provide less staffing and more consulting. In other words, companies will hire us for our ideas but not to monitor @ mentions.