So, you’ve been tasked with creating a social media RFP. These questionnaires set the foundation for successful agency or vendor partnerships. Particularly for enterprise operations, the RFP process plays a critical role in making sure you select a partner that understands the complexities and nuances of your company. But, like all formal documents, creating them can be challenging and time consuming when you think about all the bases you need to cover.
Thankfully, you don’t need to start from scratch. There are templates to guide you through the process. All you need to do is make a few tweaks and personalize the document to align with your project and goals. Keep reading for a breakdown on what makes a great social media RFP—and we’ll share our template to help you get started. You’ll be sifting through proposals in no time.
What is a social media RFP?
A social media request for proposal (RFP) is a formal questionnaire used to vet vendors for a service or software. These documents help marketers make the best possible decision on who to partner with. Choosing a software or service provider can be a high-stakes decision. Once a contract is signed, there’s little room to renege or make changes. Social media RFPs give marketers the freedom to shop around, allowing them to make the best possible choice for their business.
What’s the difference between a social media agency RFP and a social media software RFP?
There are two types of social media RFPs: agency RFPs and software RFPs.
- Social media agency RFPs assess how an agency might approach your specific needs. These questionnaires focus on information about project and bidder qualifications.
- Social media software RFPs assess whether a software vendor can meet the needs of your organization. These questionnaires focus on software capabilities, data governance, product roadmaps and general company information.
Both types collect standard information: company profiles, terms of agreement and payment information. The technical nature of software RFPs allows them to be more cut and dry, remaining fairly the same from project to project. Social media agency RFPs vary based on your project and needs. According to our 2023 Agency Pricing and Packaging Report, the top three services agencies provide are social media strategy, content development and social media management.
Both RFPs can be templatized, saving you extra work in the long term. Since software RFPs focus more on technical, legal and regulatory requirements, you likely won’t need to make as many changes to questions over time. As you scale your marketing tech stack, it’s worth it to build out a comprehensive template so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel each time.
Why should you use a social media RFP?
Social media RFPs may take time to create, a detailed RFP allows you to hit the ground running with your vendor selection process. It covers all the background questions so you can focus on big-picture items. Here are a few more reasons to use a social media RFP:
Better integration with your full marketing tech stack
Your entire suite of software solutions can quickly become cumbersome. You also risk making processes more difficult if the different tools don’t work well together. When searching for the right solution, you’ll want to know if potential vendors can integrate with tools you already rely on. Crafting a solid RFP will help you ask the right questions and find a solution that helps your entire stack work more seamlessly.
Get your team on the same page
Working in a silo rarely produces the results you need. Ideally, any social media software you purchase should benefit everyone. A social media RFP serves as a level-setting document your entire team can contribute to. This is particularly useful if multiple departments will use the new platform. For example, if both marketing and customer service will use the software, your social media RFP should include content and questions that address the needs of both departments. Interview key stakeholders to guide your RFP.
Measure scalability
Software scalability is everything for enterprise social media programs. One potential solution might handle all the different social channels you have, but can it also manage the multiple regions and languages of your target audience? Artificial intelligence (AI) is creating new opportunities for software to meet the needs of large and disparate marketing operations. RFPs help you tap into whether a potential partner can truly scale at the pace your company needs.
Understand cost and ROI
Marketing budgets can be tight and social media professionals often face huge pressure to show return on investment (ROI) quickly. Investing in the wrong tool can be disastrous when it comes time for reporting. On top of that, many software companies don’t post every cost level on their website, opting for custom quotes. Social media RFPs help answer important questions about product cost of ownership, included features and potential custom application programming interface (API) solutions so you can feel confident about your choice down the road.
RFPs are a key part of maintaining transparent, equitable processes. They help guarantee you’re making the best choice for your organization. By giving multiple vendors a fair shot at bidding, you access a variety of perspectives on how to approach the task at hand. All you have to do is pick the one that aligns best with your vision.
What’s included in a social media RFP template?
There are many marketing RFP templates available. That said, not all marketing RFP templates are created equal. Instead of tailoring an all-purpose template to the needs of your project, start with a template that’s social-specific. We created a social media software RFP template to give you the framework for a solid RFP:
There’s some essential information you should include when creating a social media RFP template. Whether you want to build off our template or create your own, here’s what you need:
Your company profile
Think of this as the “About Us” section of your RFP. It doesn’t have to be a detailed account of your company history. It just has to give vendors an idea of what your company does and your ideal customer base. Equip them with enough information to do their own research. Include information on your mission, values, average customer profile and industry.
Social media overview
This is where you provide details on your social channels, current software and historic performance. Include links to all existing accounts. Include quantitative and qualitative information on past performance to give a picture of the size of your social media operations, such as:
- Quantitative: follower count, average inbound messages per month, relevant analytics
- Qualitative: overview of past campaigns, SWOT analysis by channel
Description and goals
This is the most important section of your RFP. Social media software can support several different areas, so be as clear as possible. Do you need ongoing profile management? Audience engagement? Analytics? The more specific you are, the easier it’ll be to find the right vendor.
When it comes to social media goals, stick to broad objectives. Include ideal timelines for product selection and implementation. Allow the bidder to come back to you with SMART goals, providing them with enough flexibility on how they’d like to approach the project.
Account management
Highlight key back-end needs such as integration with your other marketing and social media management tools. You’ll also want to understand the ongoing management needs and details about the usability of the tool. This can include features like single sign-on, overcoming native API challenges of various social channels and user interface questions.
Customer care and points of contact
A single point of contact can do wonders when it comes to limiting confusion. In this section, list a point of contact for the sales process and another for once the contract is signed. Leave space for the bidder to do the same. When it’s time to set a meeting, you’ll know exactly who you’re reaching out to.
This section is a great space to discuss customer care needs and expectations. What support does the vendor offer and how do they handle crises like outages? Given the increasing applications of AI, it can be useful to know if a vendor leverages AI to address certain customer support needs. Include a place to discuss how the vendor does or doesn’t guarantee uptime and the initial implementation process.
Analytics and social listening
With any social media tool, you’ll want access to quality data that can be easily sorted, understood and shared. AI is an ally here and an ideal social media technology partner will leverage it to make data aggregation and reporting easier. Your social media strategy likely includes social listening as part of your data collection, so you’ll want a platform that can support those efforts.
Proof of work
Proof of work (or bidder qualifications) gives vendors the opportunity to make their case for your business.
Request any specific experience information (testimonials, case studies, references etc.) in this section. If you’re in a niche industry, ask for examples of previous work that relate to your business sector.
Terms of agreement
Choosing a new vendor is a legal decision. The final contract will need to be approved by your legal team before you can sign it. There’s nothing worse than being ready to kick off a project and running into a frustrating legal hurdle. By asking for terms of the agreement upfront, you can get a head start on reviewing the request. That way, you can address any issues during the selection process.
Next steps
Ask the bidder to outline how they’d like to move forward after the proposal has been reviewed. Each software vendor will have its own process.
To keep track of how the process is progressing, create a vendor selection scorecard that lists all your RFP criteria. Include columns for each vendor to maintain a quick snapshot of who meets your different needs. You can also use this sheet to track where your team is at in the selection process.
Example questions to include in your social media RFP
To better understand the type of questions you can include in your social media RFP, here are a few examples from our free template:
Industry and company profile
- Describe your company’s industry footprint.
- Who are your major competitors?
- What differentiates your company from its competitors?
- Can you provide three customer references with similar use cases?
- What languages can your company’s services support?
Account management
- Which networks does your platform integrate with?
- Do we have the ability to track actions and posts by users?
- Are there workarounds in place for content that must be scheduled natively due to API issues?
Service and support
- Which networks does your platform integrate with?
- Do we have the ability to track actions and posts by users?
- What level of support can we expect during implementation?
- What level of support can we expect post-implementation?
- What technologies and support channels does your company offer to improve the customer experience?
Customer care
- Can users delegate cases to specific team members?
- Can you customize workflows to streamline tasks, improve collaboration and help customers faster?
- Does your platform offer the ability to consolidate and address messages across channels in a unified inbox?
- Does your platform provide message spike alerts?
- Does your platform support review management across channels?
Artificial intelligence and automation
- Does your platform use AI to automate analytics and reporting?
- Does your platform employ AI techniques for sentiment analysis and social listening?
- Can you evaluate and improve the accuracy of your sentiment scoring?
- Does your platform offer AI and/or automation functionality to support content generation?
- Does your platform offer AI and/or automation functionality to generate listening topics?
Influencer marketing
- Does your listening tool flag potential influencers and industry thought leaders?
- Do you offer the ability to search and filter for influencers by channel, niche, reach, engagement rate, audience demographics and other relevant criteria?
- Can you plan, execute and track influencer campaigns within the platform?
- Can we reach out to influencers and/or talent management within the platform?
- Does the software offer direct messaging, contract management and payment processing?
Create your next social media RFP
The right social media RFP can land you great bids that lead to even better project outcomes across your enterprise. Create yours using this template alongside the guidelines above. You’ll be sorting through unique options for solving your social media software needs in no time.
Get started creating your social media RFPs with these essential questions to ask, so you can find an ideal partnership to support your social media management:
The post Social media RFPs: The best questions to include (plus a template) appeared first on Sprout Social.
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