How to Choose a Social Media Agency in Dubai: 12 Questions to Ask Before You Sign

We run social media for brands in Dubai ourselves, so where our own answer helps, we give it, and at the end we say where an agency like ours fits and where it does not.

The 12 questions

1. Who owns the account and the ad account?
2. Who actually makes the content?
3. What does a month include, in numbers?
4. What will the monthly report show?
5. Can you see a case with the same metric before and after?
6. Do they know the rules for your industry?
7. Are the creators they book permit-verified?
8. Who writes the Arabic?
9. What is in the fee, and what is extra?
10. What does the contract say about leaving?
11. Who approves posts, and how fast?
12. Can you start with something small?

1. Who owns the account and the ad account?

The Instagram account, the Facebook page, the Meta business portfolio and the ad account should all sit in your name, with the agency added as a partner. Ask for that in writing. If an agency asks for your password instead, or runs your ads from its own ad account, leaving later means asking for your own history back.

The same goes for TikTok and Snapchat: the business account is yours, and the agency gets access to it.

2. Who actually makes the content?

Ask who will be holding the camera. Some agencies shoot in-house, some book freelancers shoot by shoot, and some build the month from stock images and templates. Each can work, but it changes what the feed looks like and how fast a new Reel can be made. Ask to see raw footage from a recent shoot, not only the edited posts.

Our answer: the content is shot by our own team at BlueSky Studio in Al Quoz Industrial Area 3, across six permanent themed sets with lighting included, or on location at your salon, clinic or venue.

3. What does a month include, in numbers?

Content and community management is a description, not a plan. Ask how many posts, Reels and stories go out each month, how many shoot days that takes, who writes the captions, and what happens if a month comes in short. The numbers should come from your calendar, not from a package that is the same for everyone.

As a reference point, the first month of one of the accounts we run, Kyatic, an abaya brand in Dubai, came to 15+ posts, 8 Reels and 30 stories.

4. What will the monthly report show?

Ask for a sample report before you sign. A useful one says what went out, what it did and what will change next month. Ours carries four figures: views, accounts reached, interactions, and the share of reach that came from people who do not follow you yet. That last one says whether the account is reaching new people at all.

Be wary of reports that show only likes and follower counts, and of growth percentages that compare two different metrics. A big percentage means nothing until you know what was compared with what.

5. Can you see a case with the same metric before and after?

A good case compares one metric with itself: the same measure before and after, ideally over two dated periods of the same length, so ask for the dates too. Reach went up is not a case. Reach from non-followers went from 13.2% to 28.8% in the first month at least compares like with like: that is Kyatic's, in our case study.

Ask for cases in your own industry too. A clinic account and a fashion account grow in different ways, and an agency with cases in one does not automatically know the other.

6. Do they know the rules for your industry?

Some industries carry rules a general agency may not know. DHA-licensed clinics in Dubai post under the Dubai Health Authority's standard for medical advertising on social media: a post that names the clinic needs the medical director's approval (section 5.3), before and after content has rules of its own, and words like the best or 100% are not allowed. Our guide to the DHA social media advertising standards goes through it.

Ask the agency how it handles that check, and who signs off before a post goes up.

7. Are the creators they book permit-verified?

Since 1 February 2026, anyone who promotes a product, a service or content on social media in the UAE needs an Advertiser Permit, paid or not, and brands and agencies are expected to check that every advertiser they work with holds one. Ask how the agency checks, and where the permit numbers are kept.

The UGC creators we book are permit-verified, and the permit number sits in your campaign file. The checks a brand should run itself are in our guide to the UAE Advertiser Permit.

8. Who writes the Arabic?

If your customers read Arabic, ask who writes it: someone who writes for social media in Arabic, or a translation of the English caption. Ask to see Arabic posts the agency has published, and whether the plan uses bilingual captions or separate posts in each language. Our team works in English and Arabic.

9. What is in the fee, and what is extra?

The monthly fee and the ad budget are two different things, so ask for them as separate lines. Then ask what costs extra: shoot days, models, makeup, locations, creators.

Our published rates for one-off work give a reference point: makeup artists from AED 500 + VAT, on-location shoots from AED 3,500 + VAT for a half day, creator-led UGC from AED 4,400 + VAT, and studio time from AED 320 + VAT per hour.

10. What does the contract say about leaving?

Read the exit before the start: the minimum term, the notice period, and what happens on the last day. Who owns the photos and videos shot during the contract, and can you keep using them? Are the raw files handed over? Does the agency's access to your accounts end on that day?

11. Who approves posts, and how fast?

Agree the approval route before the first post: who on your side signs off, how far ahead the posts arrive, and how fast a change gets made. A plan that arrives the night before it goes live leaves no room for a real approval. For a clinic, the medical director approves anything that names the facility.

12. Can you start with something small?

A single shoot, a trial month or an audit tells you more than a deck. Ours is a free Instagram audit: send your handle on WhatsApp, and the team sends back what already works, five fixes for this week and one thing to test next month, with no password needed.

Red flags

• Guaranteed follower numbers, or followers that arrive overnight.
• A request for your password instead of partner access.
• Ads run from the agency's own ad account.
• No sample report, or a report of likes only.
• A month described in adjectives rather than numbers.
• A long minimum term with no clear way out.

Where an agency like ours fits

BlueSky Studio runs social media for brands whose content has to be shot: beauty salons and spas, aesthetic and medical clinics, fashion and abaya brands, skincare and cosmetics, and real estate. We shoot in our own studio in Al Quoz, run Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and Facebook, and keep the cases on our social media management page.

If what you need is mainly media buying on a large ad budget, or your business is in an industry we have no case in, ask an agency that does, and put the same 12 questions to it.