Social media agency, freelancer or automation? A comparison for brands with a large product range

Anyone who wants to be present on Instagram regularly essentially has three options: produce in-house, outsource or have it produced automatically. Which one fits depends mainly on range, budget and available time.

Producing in-house

Strengths: close to the brand, quick reactions, no external costs.

Weaknesses: ties up time continuously. Regularity depends on individual people and suffers when day-to-day business takes priority.

Agency or freelancer

Strengths: creative one-offs, campaigns, experience with formats.

Weaknesses: costs rise with the number of posts. Every product group needs briefing, alignment and often product samples. With hundreds of products, most of them never appear.

Automated production

Strengths: many posts from the whole range at a fixed monthly price, a consistent visual language, little effort for approval.

Weaknesses: individual campaigns with a special concept or people in the picture remain a matter for a shoot or an agency. Setup takes time once to align style and tone.

When which solution fits

• Small range, plenty of time in the team: produce in-house.
• Individual campaigns, brand films, events: agency or freelancer.
• Large range, regular need, little time: automated production – complemented by individual campaigns if needed.

What core.iq Studio costs

core.iq Studio comes in three packages: Essential for CHF 990 per month (8 posts, Instagram and Facebook), Grow for CHF 1’690 (12 posts, plus LinkedIn and Pinterest) and Studio for CHF 2’590 (20 posts). The one-time setup costs from CHF 1’499, the minimum term is three months, after that the subscription can be cancelled monthly. All prices plus VAT.

For agencies there is a partner solution that can be used as white label. Details under Pricing, or talk to us.