Social media is now an every day part of any business’ marketing strategy and most people still don’t know how to to use it properly.

This period of time reminds me of the early days of SEO with agencies popping up everywhere making promises which are not only unsustainable but offer very little ROI.

There is a misconception that social media is free – it is not.  Even if you do it yourself, your time is your most important asset so are you achieving your goals and getting a return on your social media activities? I see many businesses delegating Social Media tasks to the younger member of the team (because they get it), or automating their social media and cross posting thinking that will work!

It is after many people have watched with dismay their follower counts stagnate or get little interaction with their posts that they either pull back their social media activities (big mistake) or look for a way or outsourcing their social media marketing to an agency.

Choosing an agency for your social media marketing is a very good idea.  However, in a world where everyone is now a social expert or pivoting from the old world of marketing there are some things to look out for:

The Agency you don’t want can fall into the following camps:

1. The over complicated approach – This agency will put 10 people in a meeting room to discuss brand voice and then ask for 30 days to compose a tweet for your approval.
2. The Social Media Experts Agency – This agency possibly started less than a year ago, has a few hundred followers and posts once a month.
3. The Cheap Seats – This agency will offer to send 15 + tweets a day for £20 per month.
4. The offer of 5000 new followers for £10…..just walk away from this and don’t look back.
5. Delegate the task to their junior staff or cross post to several platforms at once.

As a general rule ‘never take advice from someone who has fewer followers than you’.

The Agency you do want will do this:

1. Target your audience on the platforms where your customers hang out.
2. Build a following with people interested in your product / service.
3. Target keywords, users and brands.
4. Share your content with their own network (Look for how much interaction their own posts get).
5. Grow your audience with real followers.
6. Set up and manage targeted Ads as required.
7. Bring more traffic to your website and increase enquiries (verified via analytics).
8. Design graphical posts using images and video as required.
9. Have a background in SEO as Social Media is a key part of Search.
10. Offer advice on new Social Media tools such as live streaming and use them themselves.

Here is a snapshot of our Twitter activity for the first 7 days of July 2016.

If you would like help with your social media strategy please get in touch.

Our achieved Social Media reach is over 165,000 (May 2016)