What Services Does A Social Media Agency Offer? What Do They Do

You've seen the social media success stories and decided you want to up your social media marketing game.

Only, it's a little challenging to get it right yourself.

So it's time to hire a social media agency, but you're not quite sure what they can do for you.

Social media marketing has two purposes: to say what your brand wants to say and to say what your audience wants to hear.

Social media marketing agencies find the overlap between the two. Using their resources and know-how to create engaging content and navigate social media platforms to place that content in front of the right audience.

When done correctly, this results in a lower cost per customer acquisition and higher returns on investment.

In this blog post, we'll show you the many ways in which social media agencies aim to do that.

Social media marketing exists to bring more traffic to your website. Each channel you use is a pathway for people to find you. However, optimising for each platform and consistently delivering results is no simple task.

If you're a smaller business, the chances are you don't have the time or resources to keep your whole social media operation running at full speed. Social media marketing agencies fill this void.

Content creation

Content is central to any social media strategy. It's what gets readers' attention and then gets them interested in your brand and your offers. Agencies will brainstorm, plan and create content from text posts to Instagram images to engaging videos.

Backed by a team that creates content day in and day out, an agency will never run out of ideas. They also have the expertise and strategic insight to routinely make the right content for your brand to the right person on the right platform.

Copywriting for social media posts

Copywriting is selling with words. It’s the lifeblood of the advertising industry and works to convert readers into buyers. In social media, copywriting encourages readers to click links. For example, if you're promoting a blog post via Facebook, the copy will encourage readers to click the blog post's link.

On the other hand, brands e can also use social media copywriting to keep followers entertained and engaged, encouraging more users to connect with them in the process. By posting tweets that are witty, insightful or downright weird, brands can go viral. For example, take a look at this one from Weetabix:

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While odd, it netted Weetabix considerable engagement and was widely spoken about and shared across other channels too. Even Google joined the party:

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Content scheduling

Knowing when to post matters. Social media agencies stay up to date with the latest social media algorithm changes to understand the best times to post for maximum reach.

A social media agency will automate the process for you by scheduling your content for the optimum times on each platform, based on your product, industry and the location of your customers.

Community management

Social media is perhaps the easiest way to interact with your customers. You can send a brand a message on Facebook and get a quick response or tweet out a problem you're having and get it fixed within the hour.

However, this requires having a team of people online at all times. Social media agencies often offer community management packages to provide customer support by answering incoming messages or tweets.

Paid social media, or media buying, is where a brand pays a social media platform to display their adverts or content to a specific audience who are likely to be interested. By using paid social, brands can grow faster by reaching more people and targeting their ideal customer more accurately.

A social media agency will take the reins and work through the exhaustive process to run and fine-tune a successful social media campaign that's on budget, targets the right people and hits your goals.

We use our media buying expertise to help brands grow their customer base while having the creative skills to fine-tune each ad for optimal results.

Advertising on Facebook & Instagram

Facebook is an advertising titan. It's the most popular social media platform and is considered by most marketers as the most important for B2B and B2C audiences. Instagram isn't too far behind its parent company either, slowly creeping its way to the top spot for B2C.

Social media agencies are experts at running Facebook Ads campaigns, combining practical experience with social media marketing expertise. An agency that knows what they're doing will help you target the right audience and know what to focus on for the best results.

An often overlooked benefit is that an agency will know how to navigate Facebook's intricate rules and regulations. This ensures that your ads get approved and prevents them from getting flagged or taken down.

Here’s an example of a Facebook Ad from one of our clients:

Advertising on YouTube

After Facebook, Youtube is the world's most used social media platform, with over a billion hours of content streamed daily. 70 percent of people say they bought from a brand due to seeing it on Youtube, and the number of active advertisements on the platform has grown by 260%.

A social media agency will take you through creating video advertisements and putting them onto YouTube's advertising system to reach your target audience. Some agencies will only offer the media buying portion, while others will script and produce the videos for you too.

Advertising on Snapchat

Populated mainly by Gen Z, Snapchat is great for engaging with a younger audience. It's even better for grabbing attention and getting a quick sale, with users 60% more likely to make an impulse purchase through the platform.

Unique in its approach, Snapchat offers video ads, story ads and lenses, allowing users to interact directly with your brand. If you're looking to prioritise Gen Z and video creative, you can't miss advertising on Snapchat.

Advertising on Pinterest

Social media agencies help get pictures of your product in front of the right people through Promoted Pins.

Compared to a behemoth like Facebook, Pinterest is relatively underutilised. However, they still have over 1.5 million brands connecting with users every month, offering a golden opportunity to get in front of more people. And with 50% of people buying products after seeing a Promoted Pin, it's not to be ignored.

Advertising on TikTok

The newest kid on the block, TikTok, is used by over 800 million monthly active users who are young and hungry for content, and countless brands are reaping the rewards from it. TikTok is perfect for targeting a younger audience, with 69% of users aged between 16 and 24.

Advertising here is a little different to the other platforms, however. It's much more interactive, creative and encourages user participation. Agencies that keep up to date with what's trending can help you produce engaging video creatives or challenges targeted at the right audience, boosting your chances of going viral.

Advertising on Twitter

Through Twitter, you can easily hop onto trending events and topics, quickly sharing content that's relevant to your brand. An agency will help you break through the noise and get your voice heard.

Through promoted Tweets, you can attract a broader audience to your brand or encourage more engagement with your existing followers. Your promoted tweets will act the same as regular Tweets and can be liked, replied to and retweeted - making them appear on people's feeds.

88% of marketers have seen a positive ROI with video marketing. You can’t ignore its power for your campaigns.

However, video production demands a heavy upfront investment. You need camera equipment, video editing software and a computer that can handle that software. Then, you need people who can operate the equipment and software to a high standard. After that, you need to write, plan, source filming locations, film, and finally edit. Without knowing what you're doing, this quickly turns into a long and expensive process.

Take the weight off your shoulders by hiring an agency that knows what they’re doing. We specialise in video production, and with our in-house resources, you're effectively hiring a film studio to produce content for you.

Video Production

Technical equipment and software aside, knowing how to structure your video to attract attention is vitally important. Agencies know what videos tend to work and which ones don't. Using their expertise, you can create a series of videos that draw more eyes to your brand.

At The Social Shepherd, we follow a specific method for creating videos that attract attention, maintain interest and drive conversions.

Video Editing

It doesn't finish when the cameras stop rolling. The video needs editing and optimising for maximum impact. Video editing involves putting together the footage to tell the best story, adding sounds and music, overlaying text and more.

Social media agencies will know the best practices for optimising video ads, such as length, storytelling, aspect ratio and more. They'll also have the hardware that can handle video editing's heavy requirements.

Motion Graphics

Motion graphics throw a splash of lively colour into the works and capture an audience’s attention. Using motion graphics, you can bring your brand to life through visual storytelling and engagingly presenting information through explainer videos.

Influencers have taken over social media, and a growing number of businesses are riding their wave with 30% of businesses paying social media influencers £100-£500 per Instagram post.

However, there isn't a one-size-fits-all approach to hiring an influencer, and some are much better fits than others. A social media agency will connect you with the ones that best fit your brand. At The Social Shepherd, we target and reach out to the most suitable influencers for each influencer marketing campaign we run.

Macro Influencers

A macro influencer typically has between 100k-1million followers. These influencers can kill two birds with one stone by connecting you to a vast and engaged audience that revolves around a specific niche.

These influencers are professionals and will treat your partnership with them as such. By growing their audience over the years, they know what will engage their followers.

Micro-Influencers

Micro-influencers are smaller, with between 10k-100k followers. While they have less reach than macro-influencers, they more than make up for it with their connection to their audience.

Micro-influencers are perfect for more specific products, and as a result of their loyal and specialised audience, they're more likely to generate qualified leads.

Social media agencies will analyse the results of their efforts and report them back to you. These reports will show the progress an agency has made and ensure that the agency is doing what they said they would.

You should only work with an agency if they are delivering the results you’re looking for. This puts a responsibility on the agency to routinely provide the best service they can.

These reports usually break down the stats into an easy to understand manner and are packed with insight. This insight allows agencies to fine-tune your strategy for better results.

For example, reporting could find your brand is working exceptionally well on LinkedIn, but not so great on Instagram. As such, to bring in more customers, your strategy should shift to focus more on LinkedIn.

What do social media agencies report?

They can track almost anything. However, what will be useful depends on the specific goals you want to achieve and the strategies used to get there. For example, focusing on how many likes you got may not be too helpful if your goal was to bring in more leads to your funnel.

Here are the key things that we measure at The Social Shepherd:

Paid Social Reporting

• ROAS
• ROAS by stage of the funnel
• Performance by targeting (interests, lookalikes, broad audiences etc)
• ROAS by placement and platform
• CTR, CPM and CPC
• Creative performance

Organic Social Reporting

• Engagement (comments and shares)
• Organic Reach
• Page & account growth
• Individual post-performance
• Boosted post-performance

As this article has shown, marketing on social media is a lot more than simply posting cute cat pictures on Facebook. It's evolved. To stay ahead of the curve, your social media strategy must evolve alongside it, which is where we come in.

We're a results-driven agency and combine our substantial experience in paid media buying with raw creative output to make brands like yours grow faster.

Unlike other agencies, we understand both the creative and technical areas deeply. In contrast, others will offer either creative or paid media - not both. Forcing you to hire from multiple agencies and freelancers rather than having your social media marketing run by a single entity.

To see how we’ll grow your brand through social media, click here to get your free strategy call.