Small Agency Hacks: 7 Low-Cost Ways to Manage Client Social Media Accounts

The infamous Stephen Covey once said, “Begin with the end in mind.” What’s your goal as a small agency? If you’re a successful small agency, keeping existing clients happy is undoubtedly an important goal. According to HubSpot’s Marketing Agency Growth Report 2018, acquiring clients is a major pain point for 60% agencies, which means that the smartest way to keep revenues consistent is to keep your existing clients very happy

As a digital marketing agency managing a client’s social media accounts, it’s essential to keep your clients’ goals and endgame in mind. You need to be clear on how you’re going to help them achieve these goals, and then you’ve got to deliver on time. Oh, and you also need to do all of this on a limited budget. Don’t worry; we’re here help. Here are seven smart, low-cost ways you can manage social media accounts and keep those clients happy.

#1: Create goal-oriented social media strategies

What are your endgames and deliverables for each client? If you don’t have these documented clearly, you can’t align client expectations to your team’s approach. That’s a surefire way to client dissatisfaction.

In order to get those endgames and deliverables nailed down, set SMART goals that are specific, quantifiable, and in line with why your client hired you. Many small agencies do this but face setbacks during execution because of hurdles and circumstances that are unforeseen. Here are two major red flags to watch out for:

• Sometimes, clients aren’t great at articulating what they expect of you. That’s why you should spend a sufficient amount of time understanding their requirements. It’s best if you have a set of go-to questions to assess what clients actually need from you.

• It’s easy to stray away from end goals in day-to-day execution. Ensure that you and your team review all social media content keeping goals in mind. It’s also a good idea to have daily or weekly exams to check if you’re on track.

#2: Build a network of active freelancers

Your first concern after accepting a client project should be capacity. You need to make sure you have the resources to produce quality work within the agreed upon deadlines. Most small agencies have one account manager handling way too many client accounts, which can lead to problems with delivery. If that manager is tied up, then there’s no one to follow up and ensure delivery.

The situation could also become dicey if you have already accepted to work with too many clients and there isn’t enough capacity to handle daily assignments for clients. Here’s how you can avoid these crises:

• Ensure that your point-person, whether an account manager or strategist, has every client’s information and strategy documented in a meticulous manner. This is essential when getting work executed through multiple resources.
• Build a network of active freelancers on whom you can depend for extra work from time to time. This is more cost-effective than keeping full-time in-house employees who may not have enough work to justify a yearly cost to company.
• Test freelancers’ capabilities and worth ethics beforehand by giving them small parts of projects to handle. That way you can find out if they’re reliable under pressure without too much risk.

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#3: Employ low-cost project management software

Keeping your clients’ account details, documents, and content in one place for all project contributors to access is a key part of managing client social media accounts efficiently. Another important part of managing multiple projects without hangups is investing in good project management software. The good news is that there are several free and affordable software options that you can use to automate or streamline most repeat tasks. That leaves you with more time to focus on strategy and improve performance.

There are so many different types of project management software that you can use, but these are particularly helpful for managing client social media accounts:

• DrumUp:  Instead of keeping client logins and content in confusing sheets, you could connect client social accounts to DrumUp and group each client’s accounts for easy scheduling. Instead of keeping created social media content in different places, you can store it all in customizable content libraries on this tool. You can then schedule that content right in DrumUp.

• Trello: You can delegate work, set deadlines, and track progress of projects using a Trello board. Every employee or freelancer involved in a project can be invited to this board for easy and effective communication.

• Canva: If you need a quick way to create Facebook, Twitter or Instagram visuals or infographics, you can work with templates on Canva, thereby saving time and effort spent on graphic design. Many of Canva’s templates are free for use.

#4: Create social account groups for easy scheduling

Consistency is important in establishing brand recognition. Today, there are so many social media platforms to use, and there’s stiff competition in every industry you can imagine. How, then, do you expect your target audience to recognize you? The first rule is to create content that stands out, of course. But it’s equally essential to create content that’s consistent across social media platforms to promote brand recognition. Sometimes, a person has to see the same content more than once for it to register in their minds.

One easy way to ensure consistency across social platforms is by grouping client accounts to share similar content. You can save time and effort on this activity by saving content in an organized manner and linking content folders to social account groups for automatic sharing.

• Create social account groups out of each client’s accounts connected to your social media management tool and save social posts of each client separately. Automate the sharing of repetitive content such as blog posts from RSS feeds or social media posts from online folders if possible.
• Save old social media posts in easy-access folders and reuse them from time to time. All evergreen ideas are reusable and can trigger brand recall if used in the right way.

#5: Publish a mix of original and curated content

If your social media strategy is really goal oriented, it won’t matter to your clients if you’re publishing only original content or a mix of original and curated content. Only the outcome will matter to them. Curated content can actually contribute towards achieving your clients’ goals. When you curate influencer content, you strengthen your relationship not only with influencers but also with your social media audience who will see that you are more focused on giving them value than tooting your own horn. Here are a few easy and efficient ways to curate content:

• Setup RSS feeds of top blogs, new agencies, and influencer websites on an RSS reader like Feedly or Flipboard. This way, you can collect all of your content in one place.

• Subscribe to newsletters that typically curate ideas worth sharing.
• Attribute all curated content with @mentions and tags, so the author is aware that you have shared their content. This gives you opportunity to open a dialogue with authors and experts over time.

#6: Use social media monitoring for brand amplification

Many small agencies overlook social media marketing or consider it solely for brand reputation management. The truth is that the potential of powerful social media monitoring is limitless. The quality of results you get out of this activity entirely rests on what you listen for. The most common outlook with social media monitoring is to listen to brand-related keywords. But you can do so much more by listening to competition, influencers, trending hashtags, and intent-based search terms using monitoring tools such as Google Keyword Alerts or BrandWatch.

Here are a few suggestions for setting up your social media monitoring:

• You could setup a search for “small agency” + “your location” to find actual prospects who are looking for agencies to work with.
• Try monitoring “guest post” + “social media” to find guest posting opportunities through promotions that blogs setup on their social media.
• Experiment with “help” + “social media” or “help” + “marketing” to identify prospect clients or help someone in need to establish your agency’s authority.

#7: Target known audiences with social media ads

As a small agency, you’re certainly not a stranger to ads on digital media. You may have setup ads for yourself and your clients; you have probably experienced success sometimes and burned your budget others. Regardless, you’re aware that ads are a highly recommended part of social media marketing that you can’t avoid. Here are a few tips to increase your success rate with Google and Facebook ads.

• Work with audiences that you know are highly likely to convert. For instance, consider using remarketing, which can target your clients’ website visitors who have left without making a purchase. You can set up remarketing ads on Facebook and Google.
• You could also turn newsletter subscription lists into your ad target database on Facebook. Many times, it’s existing customers who add to your revenue by making repeat purchases. Email-based ad targeting can help you get to those customers.
• Demonstrate value instead of making a hard-sell on ads. Ad aversion has been on the rise these last few years because today’s audience despises being sold to. Woo them with the value that you can add to their lives.

The benefit of low-cost happy clients? Growth.

Every small agency owner wants to maximize the impact of spend to make sure clients are not just impressed with the results but keep coming back for more. With these seven hacks for keeping your costs down and your clients pleased, you can spend less time crunching numbers and more time, say, growing your agency.

About the author

Disha Dinesh is a Content Strategist at Godot Media, a leading content agency. Her interests include social media and content marketing. When she’s not on the hunt for content and social media trends, she’s foot-tapping to the latest in progressive music.