Boosting Your Influence With Our Social Media Marketing Agency
As marketing disciplines go, few have experience a more meteoric rise in prevalence in recent times, than social media marketing. This echoes a wider change, in which social media has marked a cultural upheaval, disrupting what we take as the convention for communication, and installing something completely new in its place. Many people, for example, now talk more over social media platforms, than they do in real life. I’m too much of a chatterbox for that to happen, much to my partner’s dismay!
The arguments against this original social distancing are now well-established, and whilst the healthiness of such platforms can be debated until the cows come home, one thing is for certain. These platforms are fantastic for putting your brand out there. The team here at VerriBerri, a leading social media marketing agency in Essex, wanted to look at some of the things a brand should consider when looking for social media marketing.
Who’s Your Audience?
Before you do anything else with social media marketing, you need to define your audience. What we mean by this is consider whether your brand is B2B or B2C? Whilst you may not think this makes a huge difference to what platforms you utilise, it does. Just as different brands convey different tones of voice, so too do different social media platforms. LinkedIn, for example, is the pinnacle of networking professionalism. It’s a place for brands to showcase their business acumen and reputation. It isn’t, on the other hand, a place for levity and zany humour. That’s why LinkedIn lends itself so well to B2B businesses, because they’re the brands who more often engage and communicate through that professional tone and lens.
By the same token, if you’re a B2C business, offering a wacky product for children, then marketing to the kids directly through more ‘current’ platforms such as TikTok, is going to prove more valuable to you. Of course, these are two polar ends of the spectrum and most businesses fall somewhere between the two. That’s why a social media marketing agency is so attractive; they can tailor something completely bespoke to your business’ (and yours only) specific needs.
What Ways Can We Help?
Once you’ve established what platform you’re going to focus on (bear in mind, that most strategies incorporate several different platforms), then you can begin to look at the services themselves. Most social media marketing agencies will offer the following services, as standard:
Management
The most common form of social media marketing service is account management. An agency will offer a professional account manager, who will look after your accounts day-to-day, schedule and publish content on your brand’s behalf. One of the main benefits of having someone take care of your social media channels, is the time it frees up. There’s no denying that social media is a sinkhole when it comes to using up your time. This is time that you may not be able to spare, as a business owner. This, though, puts you in a catch-22 when you know how beneficial it can prove. Social media account managers are the perfect solution for this dilemma.
Design
Something that helps set the great social media accounts apart from simply the good ones, is custom design. If you’ve ever spent an afternoon looking at brand accounts on Instagram, you’ll know what we mean. Accounts which have custom-made graphics, gifs and other uniquely designed content come across as much more professional than those just using stock imagery. Even good, paid-for stock imagery doesn’t come close to something designed entirely for your brand. Bespoke design is one of the best ways in which you can strengthen your brand recognition amongst your target audience.
Photography
If you can’t have graphic design carried out, then original photography is the next best thing. Original content is preferable in all circumstances because it’s both more authentic, and more engaging. Whilst we would always recommend a professional photographer coming in and generating a few months’ worth of content, that’s not always financially viable. In that case, use your smartphone! Smartphones today have great cameras, and there are plenty of online free (or at least cheap) courses you can go on to learn how to make the best of them!
Interaction
Interaction will revolve around actively growing your account’s following, and engaging with other social media users. This will include replying to comments (an immensely time-consuming process, but one which reflects very well on your brand) and looking for collaborative opportunities with other brands.
Upholding Reputation
This last one comes in two forms. Firstly, it involves constantly looking out for feedback and/or complaints that your brand may have received, and dealing with them in a prompt manner that satisfies that user. This helps prevent problems escalating, and can also reveal key insights into where you can improve according to your customers. Secondly, it focuses on bolstering and constantly building up your overall reputation. This would mean, on LinkedIn, for example, always looking to connect with new industry professionals. It also means fine-tuning and tweaking a connection ‘script’ so that your LinkedIn growth comes across as organic rather than exploitative/only beneficial to one party. Your growth cannot come at the expense of brand image, as this will damage you in the long run.
Contact us
The world of social media can be difficult to navigate, especially if you’re not familiar with it, in the first place. It can reap untold rewards, however, if you implement it into your marketing strategy in the right way. The key things to remember are: what’s your audience? As well as what do you want most out of your marketing? However you may have answered those questions, the chances are we can help. So, if you’d like to find out more about our social media marketing agency, then get in touch! Contact VerriBerri today on 01376 386 850. We’d love to have a sit down, look at your existing social channels and see where we can help!