Sell your agency

Own or run a pure-play social media agency? Then, according to this opinion piece in NMA, you should GET OUT NOW:

Owner/managers of social media agencies looking to realise the value they have built in their businesses may well be asking themselves how they should be approaching a potential sale. Currently there are only a few independent social media agencies of any significant size - perhaps a dozen at most in the UK - so rarity value is playing in their favour. It's a sellers' market and we believe deals will continue to be done at lightning speed.

Yet the window of opportunity to sell is likely to be pretty brief - the 'sizzle' in the market is starting to disappear already, and now is the time to act. We are seeing social media agencies starting to lose pitches to non-specialist agencies. A range of warning signs leads us to believe that social media agencies have this year and possibly some of 2012 to make their move.

Perhaps the question that remains is... where do they go?

• As the "social" bit of a larger agency or network?
• Merged / integrated into a digital shop?

Are the options becoming fewer and further between?