Whether it's for public relations, marketing, or social media, there comes a time in a company's life when they make the executive decision to hire an outside agency. Perhaps they don't have the internal staff to handle it. Perhaps it's a job bigger than they want to commit to. Perhaps they just don't have the experience or the time to develop the needed skill set. Whatever the reason, bringing in outside help is never a bad thing.

When it comes to social media, companies generally fall into one of these three scenarios:

1. No Show:  Your company is not branded or represented on social media platforms at  all.
2. Bench Warmer: Your company has been set up on the different sites, but no one's monitoring or updating them, and there is zero engagement.
3. All Star: Your company is alive, well, and thriving on the sites.

Of course, every company wants  to be option 3, the All Star. The problem is that few smaller companies have the resources to make it happen using existing staff, or the experience in the different networks to do so effectively... so they use an outside agency that they deem to have the needed experience.

Usually.

I love social media, technology, and what I do. I use social media 16 hours a day, so I see a lot. When I see rockstar Twitter accounts or Facebook pages, I pay attention. But I'm also pretty critical of the bad ones, and while the common eye may not catch things, very little gets by me.

When I travel on vacation or for business, I make sure that I follow the companies on my itinerary and do my best to engage with them—a lot. I tweet from their properties. I take pictures on Instagram. I take pictures and post them on Facebook and Twitter. I check in on Foursquare and Yelp. Always tagging. Always mentioning. Not because I'm looking for anything but because I want to. It's what I do after all.

And do you know—hardly any of them respond. Ever. I am no Peter Shankman when it comes to being an online Rockstar, but I've earned my stripes and have a better than average following.

Do you remember what my favorite word is?

Engagement.

As a professional, I have two thoughts on this. Either the companies are managing their social media in-house and need some serious training or they have outsourced their social media to an agency who is doing them very, very wrong.

No matter who manages your social media presence, you need to be engaging with your audience. Especially if THEY (your fans/followers) are actively communicating and engaging with YOU, the brand! This is social media 101, and  the reason for being in the social networks in the first place. Nothing disappoints me more than a brand that is "on" social media, but all they do is sit on the bench. Moreover, it is important to respond promptly. Not a week later. After all, this is why you are engaging an outside source—to provide consistent and timely communications, right?

If your company has chosen an agency to manage your social media presence, you still need to check in from time to time to make sure that your brand is being represented the way you want it to be. You don't have to know everything to understand the basics of Twitter and Facebook. You should be meeting with your chosen agency on a monthly basis to review what happened the month before and what the plan for the next month is. Is there a steady increase of followers and likes? Is there an equal mix of conversation and information/links? How many mentions are you getting on Twitter? Are your tweets being retweeted? How many comments or posts are getting on Facebook?

In a world that insists on ROI, these are the numbers in social media that you should worry the most about—we call it ROE—Return on Engagement. Colleague and industry leader, Ted Rubin, calls it ROR—Return on Relationship. Companies often forget that social media's best feature is customer retainment. If you're making your customer feel good about your brand by engaging them, then they're going to talk about you and spread the word about you. That's the true magic of this medium and what every single company should strive for.

If the agency that you have hired can't provide this information to you and cannot show you that they're building your community, you're paying a very high price to be mediocre.