“Do you have any social media experience?” I hear this question, or a similar one, at nearly every interview for a social media marketing role that I’ve been on in the past two years. And the answer is always “yes”, but it’s been hard to explain how exactly to someone who hasn’t spent their entire career doing what they want to spend their career doing. Like, obviously we went through four years of college and learned something, but it’s not like this stuff is taught at most colleges (if any).
I can’t help but tell people about how awesome social media is. I love how one simple tweet from a friend can change someone’s day for the better. Seriously, it does! One single tweet saying “you look stunning today” can brighten someone’s entire week. So, I decided to write a post about why social media marketing is so important for any business and how to increase your customer base through social media networks.
Social Media Marketing Agencies:
1. SociallyIn
SociallyIn helps brands with different aspects of their social media marketing strategy by deploying result-driven services around social strategy, content production, community management, paid social advertising, influencer marketing, and more. They split their services into creative and production, community management, social media strategy, and social paid advertising.
SociallyIn films, captures, makes, paints, records, bakes, builds, hatches, composes, invents, writes, draws all of their clients’ social media content in-house. They begin their social strategy by having an in-depth meeting around the demographics of the audience they are trying to reach for the social media campaign. This meeting helps the creative team brainstorm content that will resonate with the ideal audience.
Once their team has an understanding of the business and branding, they move into a discussion around a brief. It can be a campaign, a seasonal holiday, or anything in between. After the brief, they move into a brainstorm session, using different brainstorming techniques to come up with unique ideas for various social platforms. Once they are ready to launch their strategy, they continue to test, measure and optimize.
If you opt for community management, SociallyIn uses community managers to represent your brand, keeping the page filled with fresh content, actively participating in conversations with your followers. At the end of each month, they review their efforts, including engagement and follower growth. They even offer multilingual social media management in over 36 languages.
2. Disruptive Advertising
Utah-based Disruptive Advertising splits its services into PPC Management, Site Testing, Analytics Consulting, and Software. In terms of social media marketing, their primary focus is on PPC, Facebook, and LinkedIn Ads in particular.
They see their clients’ bottom line as their top priority. To maximize returns, they optimize their clients’ PPC campaigns every week. They continuously optimize their ads and targeting to achieve the highest yield and lowest costs possible.
Disruptive Advertising describes itself as being on a mission to change the world—one click-at-a-time. They test and analyze every aspect of your campaign and rigorously optimize it from click-to-close.
Although Disruptive Advertising sees Google Ads as the powerhouse of PPC advertising, they recognize the importance of Facebook for B2C marketing, and LinkedIn for those in the B2B sector. They realize how both platforms let you target ads in various ways. However, they stress that the more accurate your understanding of your target customers, the more precise and profitable you can make your ads.
3. Iron Roots
Iron Roots is a full service digital agency based in Austin, Texas. From social media to paid ads, the boutique growth shop specializes in customer acquisition using the top strategies built unique for each client.
The client experience is simple: Discover brand > Develop strategy > Assemble campaign > Deploy & Manage
Brands hire Iron Roots to:
• Ramp up app installs
• Grow eCommerce sales
• Generate leads and beyond
With in-house copywriters, designers, video pros, project managers, and in-house technology, the client experience is entirely guided. The agency understands the digital landscape very well. It simplifies collaboration and allows for a close working relationship with its clients.
Iron Roots believes agency transparency is the key to long-term growth and focuses on maintaining their successful client track record as the #1 priority. Their omni-channel, full service approach has landed long term partnerships with hundreds of brands and has brought millions of dollars in ROI.
4. Cleverly
If you specifically need help with LinkedIn, Cleverly is a clever choice. From managing your campaigns to targeting to lead magnets, their agency can help you to generate concrete results by means of LinkedIn ads. In short, they use data from thousands of outbound B2B campaigns to send tailored messages to your ideal clients on LinkedIn.
Alternatively, if you don’t want to outsource it to an agency, they also offer a LinkedIn lead gen course. In this course, they’ll teach you all their tried-and-tested LinkedIn systems and strategies so that you can automate and grow your business.
Their services include:
- LinkedIn lead generation
- LinkedIn paid advertising
- LinkedIn candidate recruiting
- White-label lead generation
- LinkedIn lead gen course
5. LYFE Marketing
LYFE Marketing is a full social media management company. They offer social media services, search engine services, and website design services. They create and manage top-performing social media campaigns for clients on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
They split their services into:
- Social Media Management Services
- Social Media Advertising Services
- Website Design Services
- Search Engine Optimization Services
Since 2011, LYFE Marketing has managed over 2,000 social media marketing campaigns. They claim to have driven over 983,287 leads for clients through digital marketing. Their social media marketing services help their clients’ businesses grow brand awareness (followers), relationships (engagement), and website exposure (traffic).
They follow a five-step social media marketing process:
- Assign a dedicated social media manager to your account
- Develop a social media strategy that is specific to your business
- Develop content calendars and advertisements
- Growth optimization and daily maintenance
- Reporting and communication
6. Sculpt
This is a social media marketing agency that specialises in working with B2B companies. Their expertise lies in generating qualified leads for businesses from social media.
How do they do it? They do it by strategising, creating a customised plan for each client, and then executing it. They also have experience of running paid social media campaigns and can help you boost your advertising ROI. The best part about this agency is that it also provides training and guidance for your in-house staff. So, when you hire them, it’s not just for a campaign, but also to build a skilled in-house team that will be beneficial in the long run.
Here’s how the categorise their services:
- Paid social ads
- B2B social media
- Social media pricing
Services Render By Social Media Agencies
According to Social Media Today (2017), people will spend more time over their lifetime using social media than they will eating, or socializing using other methods.
A slightly more recent study (2019) from the Global Web Index (shared via Digital Information World) shows that the trend is not about to reverse any time soon. Year after year, we tend an increasing amount of time on social media.
It’s vital then, that businesses tap into the power of social media and use it to reach their audience. This creates an excellent potential for agencies working in digital marketing, PR and communications.
Your agency may already be offering various marketing and communication services – but your clients will often want to get everything they need in the same place.
Quicksprout predicts that social media marketing budgets are set to double by 2021 (compared to 2016).
Whether they’re already looking for social media services or you need to convince them that they need them, you can provide a variety of services to help them. If you’re unsure about which SEO services you should be offering your clients, start by considering the various opportunities in this guide.
1. Channel-specific social media services
Before you consider what type of social media services your agency might offer, it’s worth considering which social media channels are worth your time. You need to know which sites and apps drive traffic, as well as which are most in demand from your clients or potential clients.
Each social media channel can differ widely from the next, although they share many similarities too. Facebook is often the focus of social media campaigns, with more than a billion users – making it the most popular network. Other important networks range from Pinterest and Instagram to Google+, LinkedIn, or even Snapchat, depending on your audience.
To work out which social media networks your services should focus on, you need to consider your typical client. A B2B business is more likely to benefit from using LinkedIn more than a consumer brand that targets millennials.
You need to know which networks your clients are interested in using. If they don’t yet know what they’re looking for, have a list of recommendations prepared.
2. Strategy planning
Having a solid strategy for social media is vital for any brand. Many smaller brands start to use social media without giving a lot of thought to their goals or reasons for choosing a particular network.
Creating content strategies for brands ensures that your clients have a plan set out and a good idea of what’s going to work for them. If you decide to create content strategies for your clients, you might spend time researching their audience and social keywords, as well as testing and analyzing different networks and types of content.
You should be able to present your client with a detailed plan, including elements such as an editorial calendar, that they can follow to achieve their goals. Of course, you might also go further and help them to carry out their strategy.
3. Account/profile creation and branding
Getting clients set up on social media for the first time is an excellent way to start them off with your social media services, and then encourage them to benefit from the other services you have to offer.
Many small business owners take the initiative to learn what they can about social media and digital marketing, but it can still be somewhat of a mystery to them. It’s often difficult to know where to start, or, if they know what they want, they may struggle to find the time to get set up on social media.
They might be looking for advice on which social networks to use, as well as help getting started with setting up profiles and accounts. Your services can ensure that social profiles work for the brand, are SEO-friendly and perhaps even have some scheduled content to get them started in the first few weeks.
4. Content creation
Many of your clients will be looking for content they can use on social media. Although there are types of content they can use across multiple channels, some need to be designed specifically for social media use.
For example, there are certain dimensions to be met for images on different networks, rules, and best practice to take into account. And of course, various types of text formatting to consider. The character limit on Twitter may have been doubled, but it still requires careful consideration to craft a tweet that works.
Social media content needs to be engaging and encourage sharing to help brands spread their message. Creating content for clients using this “food pyramid example” can involve making graphics or videos, writing social media posts or blog posts, and sourcing shareable content to share from other brands and sources.
It needs to offer something valuable and start conversations. If you’re already using creative skills within your agency, combined with analytics and data, you might have what you need to start creating social media content.
5. Content publishing
Helping your clients to schedule their content can incredibly useful service to them. It can be difficult for many small businesses to find time to post their content, especially across multiple channels.
Getting the right time to post can be difficult and might be harder when dealing with an international audience. It’s not the hardest job, but scheduling content really makes things easier for your clients.
Anything you can do to simplify social media management will be appreciated by your clients. Sometimes it’s better to offer real-time social media monitoring so that brands can avoid awkward situations caused by scheduled posts clashing with topical events.
A content calendar is often the best way to guide clients on when to post what – but still allowing the flexibility to change things if needed.
6. Research and analysis
Offering research and valuable insight about your clients’ brands is key to gaining their business. First and foremost, they want to know about their audience and customers: their interests, behavior and who they are.
Secondly, you want to include a comprehensive look at competitors, of what and how they are doing on social media. This will help your clients spot their strengths and weaknesses which they can apply to their own strategy.
Then you want to show them the influencers they should be working with and other helpful information about their industry.
There are several insights brands are keen to know both before and during running social media campaigns to help them gauge their success. A social listening tool can track their campaigns as well as help them identify the hot topics, hashtags and most valuable areas of discussion.
Salesforce marketing cloud suggests offering a relevance audit service too. This gives a client an idea of how relevant they are to their market and community.
It takes a close look at the content they share and determines whether it’s of high relevance and whether it’s resonating with the people who see it.
A relevance audit can also take a closer look at details like the language a brand uses to communicate with its online followers. It might also include research into which social media networks the brand’s audience are using most and which brands in the industry get their voices heard more.
7. Education and consulting
Social media can still be new for many business owners. Although they might use it in their personal life, it’s a very different thing to using it for marketing purposes. As an independent consultant or agency, offer services that can guide your clients in the complicated world of social media marketing.
Your services can include educating your clients on how to conduct themselves on social media. Many people need to learn the appropriate language to use when talking to their audience as a brand on different networks.
Your services can help your clients avoid using corporate jargon and adopt a more conversational and friendly approach to interacting with customers. You can assist with creating a social media policy, empowering employees to use social media, and even building a social media team.
8. Campaign and community management
While helping them get started with social media is useful, many brands require more comprehensive support for their ongoing social media efforts. Your agency should consider how you can work alongside your clients as an extension of their marketing department.
Real-time campaign management is one of the services you can offer to help them make the most of their social media strategy. By keeping your finger on the pulse, you can observe what the client’s audience is discussing and look for opportunities for content creation.
Add the services your clients need
If you’re not already offering social media services to your clients, look into which ones would be the most valuable for them. Not sure how to begin? Start by listening to what people are saying about your clients’ brands on social media.
Conclusion
A big part of a social media marketing agency’s job is creating goals, strategies, and tactics for businesses. Social media marketing for agencies is no different. If you want to be an awesome agency, you need to know how to market your agency. If you don’t have the tools on your own website to do that, then go somewhere else. You’re in luck! I’ve got the perfect place for you: Here! This list will show you how to gain rankings through social media and why it’s so important for all agencies to not only create their own social media marketing strategies but their own platforms as well.