Starting a digital marketing agency takes grit, determination and a whole lot of planning. However, as a start up, finding new clients can be difficult, especially if you don’t have a strategy in place.
In today’s hyperconnected world, one of the best places to reach your target audience is social media. According to Statista, the number of social media users is estimated to increase to 3.43 billion in 2023. That’s around a third of the world’s current population. If you want to reach and connect with your target audience, you should probably start at Facebook, Linkedin and Instagram.
So how exactly do you promote your digital marketing agency on social media if you don’t have social proof to back you up? This guide will help you maximise your online presence with strategies implemented on the right social media platforms.
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How to promote your digital marketing agency on social media
Marketing your digital agency on social media doesn’t merely mean being present online. It’s a complicated process that requires thorough research and planning. Here’s a complete list of social media marketing strategies for any start up agency.
- Define your marketing goals
The first step on learning how to promote your digital marketing agency on social media is identifying your marketing goals. After all, you can’t just start blindly posting content without intent.
For most start up agencies, they use social media for brand awareness, customer engagement and lead generation. These are all good reasons, but that doesn’t mean they should be yours as well. For instance, you might be using social media marketing to introduce your services or tell the story of your agency. Whatever your reason, make sure it’s clearly defined.
Once you decide on the purpose of your social media campaign, it will be easy for you to come up with content to publish.
- Conduct target audience analysis
Analysing your target audience may seem obvious but it’s vital that you need to know who they are. Gone are the days of good old intuition, which is why you should perform detailed target audience segmentation and create buyer personas. This means assessing the background information of your target customer such as their occupation, interests, education and hobbies. You should also include some essential demographic factors such as their gender, age range and income. By having buyer personas, you can easily target your audience and deliver authentic social media content that will engage them.
- Perform competitor research
A social media marketing strategy for a start-up agency isn’t complete without competitor research. Competitive analysis is important because it helps you gauge how to curb your competitors and refine your strategy. You’ll also have a good idea of what your customers currently need.
Start by identifying businesses that operate in the same niche, but don’t limit yourself to small businesses and startups only. To gain better industry insights, monitor social media campaigns of mid-sized agencies, and even large ones.
Pay attention to the social media marketing strategy of those digital agencies. Find out whether they’re sharing posts from industry-relevant websites, creating their own content or a mix of both. Once you have a clear idea, develop a content strategy that’s twice or even three times better than the ones they have.
- Create profiles on multiple platforms
Starting with a Facebook profile is a safe bet. With over 2.6 billion active users monthly, you can assume your target customers are there. Plus, Facebook is still the fastest growing social network so it won’t be disappearing in the near future.
However, that doesn’t mean you should stop at Facebook. After you create a Facebook page, determine other suitable social media platforms for a digital agency. We recommend creating a YouTube channel. The videos you upload on YouTube will be easy to repurpose for other marketing channels. LinkedIn is also a great social media platform for a digital agency since it’s beneficial to B2B companies. As a matter of fact, 80% of leads generated by B2B brands are from LinkedIn.
Another great social media platform for a digital agency is Twitter as it’s ideal for sharing the latest industry news or your company’s take on current trends. Your brand can also participate in larger conversations by using hashtags for trending industry topics, helping you reach new potential clients. You can also use Twitter to monitor negative and positive reactions from new clients, and use the platform to provide additional customer service.
If you want a social media platform for your digital agency that lets you showcase your brand’s personality, Instagram is the way to go. As it’s a visual platform, it has many features that you can use to improve your audience’s experience with your agency.
- Create engaging content
After intensive research and brainstorming, it’s time to create content! When you’re still learning how to promote your digital marketing agency on social media, keep in mind that engaging and well-written content is the nerve centre of every successful social media strategy.
It’s not just about posting information about the features and benefits of your products in list format. That won’t be enough to engage your audience. Most social media users also have a short attention span, so avoid lengthy articles. Instead, focus on dynamic types of content such as infographics, videos and micro-content (gifs, memes, quizzes and quotes).
- Post content on a daily or weekly basis
Now that you have profiles on the best social media platforms for a digital agency, you’ve got to make sure they stay active. If a potential client stumbles upon one of your profiles and sees that the most recent post was from a month ago, they likely won’t follow you. What’s the point of following a page that doesn’t regularly post content?
To make sure you post fresh content regularly and cover trending topics in your industry, have a distribution calendar. Distribution calendars are lifesavers for content creators and providers of social media services. They serve as a big picture visual of the types of content you can post over a specific period of time.
For instance, you can introduce “Pro Tip Tuesday,” a day when you provide your followers with invaluable, industry-specific tips. This will also increase engagement as people will likely leave questions or comments. On Fridays, you can share fun behind-the-scenes photos or videos of your staff, offering people a glimpse at the people behind your brand.
Aside from published posts, you can also take advantage of ephemeral content in the form of Facebook or Instagram stories. Since they’re only displayed for 24 hours, you won’t spam the timelines of your followers.
If your competitors are only posting once a week or twice a month, posting daily will make a lasting impression on your followers. Each time you post, you remind them that
- Broadcast live video streams
A great social media marketing strategy for start up agencies is broadcasting live video content. Facebook, Instagram and Youtube all have options to do this.
Why? Let the numbers speak for themselves. For instance, Facebook Live has been proven to garner 10x more comments and 3x longer viewer time than non-live videos.
Basically, live streams boost your engagement metrics and also give you a more authentic interaction with your audience. You can use your live broadcast in various ways, such as a behind the scenes look or a live Q & A with your in-house team. You can also give them a tour of your office and introduce them to your staff. All of these will make your followers feel that they’re seeing something exclusive, ultimately bringing them closer to your brand.
As your live audience will be able to comment in real time when you’re streaming, make sure to acknowledge those comments and respond to them during the live broadcast.
- Collect instant feedback
After you’ve established your presence on social media and gained a sizable following, the best way to improve your strategy is to collect instant feedback from your clients’ discussions. This way, you’ll find out how your followers feel about your brand and use these opinions to strengthen your approach.
Additionally, when you constantly monitor the comments and activities on your social media profiles, you can provide real-time customer service and immediate assistance. You’ll be able to detect any issues and solve them before they worsen.
- Form relationships with industry influencers
Want to increase your presence on social media without posting more content to your profiles? It’s possible with influencer marketing.
When people think of social influencers, they instantly think of celebrities and athletes. However, having a celebrity promote your brand won’t fit within your marketing budget. To implement an influencer marketing strategy, try partnering micro influencers in your industry. They may not have millions of followers but they have stronger engagement metrics with their audience. They can also post content about your agency for a few hundred dollars.
Of course, this isn’t a practice that’s meant to be sustainable or prolonged. It’s just a way to reach more people and hopefully gain an authoritative presence in your area or region.
Social media marketing is no longer an option for start up agencies, it’s basically a requirement. All of your potential clients are on Facebook and LinkedIn, and so are your competitors. If you don’t have a solid social media strategy in place, you’re not just losing the game, you’re not even a player!
However, we know that it’s not as easy as it seems. If you don’t have the time or the expertise to manage all your social media pages, you can always seek the help of social media services providers. It doesn’t matter whether you do it in-house or outsource a company to do it for you. At the end of the day, what’s important is that you have a strategy in place and that you’re working towards a goal. The success will then follow.