A website and social media work at different stages of the buying decision. People come to a website with demand already formed: they are looking for a service, comparing prices and choosing whom to call. Social media works earlier and longer — with people who are still looking around or aren’t ready to buy yet.
In a VK community or a Telegram channel, people see how you work, who is behind the company, how you answer questions and deal with problems. That kind of trust is harder to build on a website: people visit it once or twice, but they follow a community and see it in their feed for months.
Social media also brings back people who left. Someone browsed your site without sending a request, and a week later sees your post or a retargeting ad and remembers you just when the need becomes real. That’s why social media marketing doesn’t replace a website or search ads — it complements them.
Metrics fall into two groups. Vanity metrics look good in a presentation but don’t help you make decisions: follower count, likes, total reach. Followers are easy to gain through giveaways that attract prize hunters, and reach can spike from any meme that has nothing to do with your product.
Metrics that actually reflect results:
Simple tools help trace the path from a post to a lead. Every link in posts and ads gets UTM tags, so Yandex Metrica shows which post brought a visitor to the form. For purchases made outside the website, use promo codes tied to a specific platform or content category, and add a how did you hear about us field to your CRM.
In-house teams do best with anything that needs access to what’s happening live: filming production and behind-the-scenes moments, expert answers, stories from job sites. Employees know the product and see interesting moments every day.
An agency is needed where consistency and skill matter: strategy and content categories, a unified visual style, copywriting, targeted ads and analytics. These are the areas where in-house management most often stalls — posts come out irregularly, ads are launched without testing, and nobody tracks the results.
A hybrid setup works if you agree on the rules up front: