Ultimate Guide on How to Start a Social Media Marketing Agency

Taking a business decision may be very easy but it takes determination, effort, money, time, and most importantly, a strategy to flourish. The first thing to decide is what business you are going to do? This is the age of digital marketing and we all know about it more or less. So, starting a social media marketing agency is a profitable business.

There are few things that you should consider when you are jumping into the market to take a part in the rat race. Go through the following points that you need to think about before you start building up the strategy: 

1. What is your niche?
2. What is your budget?
3. What kind of audience are you targeting?
4. What is your manpower?
5. How are you planning to make money?
6. What is your local market and how much potential it has?

Starting a Social Media Marketing Agency: Challenge or Blessing?

Once you have had a discussion with yourself about these questions, let’s get into the work. Starting a social media agency in 2021 is an equally easy and challenging job.

Easy because almost everyone knows that the most lucrative business now is going to be related to digital marketing. And tough because almost everyone is thinking like you. So, you have got more competitors.

However, among numerous other reliving situations one is that you don’t need an office space anymore. You can even have internal and client meetings over apps like Zoom, Skype, Google Meet, etc. considering that any business needs an online presence more than ever, you can taste immense success if you plan and think ahead about your venture.

Now, let’s see the necessary steps to lead to the meticulous setup of a social media marketing agency.

Step 1: Choose Your Niche or Area of Expertise

You need to start somewhere to go somewhere. Pause, breathe, and think about the area that your expertise is in, considering that your social media agency will be small initially, focus on something in particular.

For example, you are a PPC or a Facebook ad expert, and you have a very efficient graphic designer, a creative writer, and an illustrator in your team. Having then is your strong point.

Start thinking about what area you know most about. Maybe you have a strong sense of art and beauty and you have contacts with artists who create art and sell those. You want to give them more exposure by creating a community and an online store that collects all of their works and helps those to reach art-lovers.

Now, what will be your steps to set up a social media marketing agency related to your area of expertise?

How can you help your clients?

You can promote your business through organic reach or advertising. You may have expert digital marketers up your sleeves. In that case, you can take the risk to reach your customers in an organic way only. Or if you want a better reach and you can spend money then the advertisement is the best way.  

Does your team know your brand?

It is important for your people, your team to know what your brand is all about. They should have a clear idea about your business ethics and morals and help you in a way that makes you flourish. In a word, starting from the junior-most employee till the CEO, everyone should know your brand like the way you do.

Step 2: What are the Services that You Can Offer to Your Clients?

You can’t be a Jack of all trades and master of none. There should be a specific set of services that you can offer to your clients. For the services that you don’t, you can hire freelancers who are experts in those fields or you can hire an agency.

You can include the following services that you can offer as a social media marketing agency:

Social media optimization and management

Social media management includes posts on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc. Different channels, different platforms, photos, posts, polls, videos, etc are the ways that you can offer your clients to promote their businesses. Catering to their queries also comes under social media management.

Paid social media

You can offer paid social media advertising to your clients. Decide how much would you charge for posts, images, videos, polls, etc.

Content writing

Content is an integral part of digital marketing and social media marketing. It involves updating regular blogs and articles on the client’s website or any guest website. You can either just deliver the contents or take the backend access of the website and upload contents or email those to the client. 

Making strategies

There is more to social media marketing than just media management and content. You need a strategy to stay in the competition. This includes branding, advertising, promotional activities, competitor analysis, social media strategy, content planning, etc.

You can provide a service exclusively for making strategies and discuss with your clients about these prospective offers. 

Interesting Read: 15 Online Competitor Analysis Tools to Spy on Your Competition

Community management

Community management includes engaging and interacting with followers in social media through posts, answering the customers’ queries, providing support to the sales and customer support agents. This work involves a 24×7 inspection. So make sure that you can give 24×7 support before promising this service to the clients.

Design

There will be some clients who will just need designs from you. You can use your in-house designers, photoshop, or Canva as paid tools to create those designs by yourself. Or you can hire freelance designers and outsource these works to other agencies.

Step 3: Build a Website

If you are planning to start a social media marketing agency then you should have an online presence. This is the most important and unavoidable condition to show your clients that you have an identity.

A website is like a home for a business. Without it, your brand doesn’t exist. A web presence is a key to a flourished business. Now, what do you have to do to own a website? Go through the following steps:

Get a domain

You must pick a domain name before you build your website. Get a name like mediaagencyforartlovers.com or something like that. Don’t forget to shamelessly include your business name in the domain.

We know this is quite funny, but it grabs the immediate attention of the clients and will make them interested in your brand. 

Website hosting

Now that you have chosen a domain name, you will need website hosting. There are ample popular hosts that you can work with. Some of those are both pocket and eco-friendly. If you get a good host then you’ll get a good server. 

Website theme

Next, you will need a WordPress theme. There are popular themes that give you ease of access and you can build a website that will create impact. 

Logo

A logo is like the face of a business. You will certainly need one. Choose a logo that will convey your brand identity at one go. There are many popular logo design software. You can use those or you can hire someone professional to do it for you.  

And before you forget in between such a large number of responsibilities, please create accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. It is not true that something good should always come for a price. Some are free as well. And your business will get noticed more if it has social media presence along with a properly built website.

Step 4: Develop Contents for Your Website

Website development-checked, domain name-checked, logo-checked, hosting-checked. Hence, it is now time to develop astounding content for your website. Contents on your website that will catch the eyes of your clients are the key to your success.

You need to sell your words before you can actually sell your service. Update 2-3 blogs regularly regarding your achievements, products to prove your authenticity.

You can post blogs on different article websites as a guest to let others know about your products as well. Whichever our domain is, make sure to put maximum effort into developing content. These contents should be updated regularly on your Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn pages.

Interesting Read: LinkedIn Page Content Strategy What Marketers Need to Know

Step 5: Initial Investments and Decisions to Run Your Agency

This step is going to cost you tons of spreadsheets and sleepless nights. It will be very tough initially to calculate all the numbers and how to utilize those.

Sometimes you will have ideas and strategies overflowing your brain but not sufficient funds to put into them. And sometimes you will be flooded with money but no projects to put your money into. Don’t get disappointed at those times.

There are some simple steps to follow if you want to pass this test with flying colors. Go through the following: 

Office space

As we told you initially, it is up to you whether you want to run a fully online business or you will need an office space? For an offline business, office space is mandatory. Keep a hefty amount for the rental purpose. 

Building up your empire

After you have decided about your office space or have chosen to communicate online, it is now time to start recruiting. You will need digital marketers, SEO analysts, PPC experts, graphic designers, illustrators, web developers, and of course content writers.

You need to pay for an auditor, a lawyer, freelancers (if you hire any), and some other miscellaneous costs for websites, business cards, banners, advertisements, flyers, and other service costs. 

Deciding roles

Someone experienced in Analysing content or content Quality analyst can not be a Digital marketing head, right? You need to assign roles to each of your recruits as per their capabilities and skills. Don’t work with someone that you have any conflict. Don’t involve people who don’t know the value of your dedication and vision.

And the most important part is to make a contract for everyone to avoid future issues regarding employment and partnership. 

Step 6: Plan a Spectacular Launch

Now that everything is done and dusted, you should prepare for a launch. The launch should be spectacular and meaningful, no matter if your business has a physical presence or not. Consider the below-mentioned facts before deciding on the launch: 

Website

Check whether you have the website up and running or not. Check for any glitches that may cause you embarrassment in the long run. Check for your contact page details to keep the direct contact option open for clients. 

Social media

Your social media pages are the medium that you are going to communicate with your prospective clients and followers. Check all the details that you have provided there. 

Local listings

It is important to register yourself in any local business listings. It can be free but register yourself first and then consider paid registration to be up in the game.  

Public relations

No matter whatever your medium is, offline or online, you have to spend your fund on PR. Plan a series of PR to create an impression in the industry. It can be an event where you can invite relevant industry people, promotional offers, and advertise it on social media, a  launch offer, an interview, or a video introduction to your agency and members. Remember to take some nice photos for the event purpose. 

Hashtags

Hashtags are the trendiest way to let the industry know about your presence. Think about a quirky hashtag that catches everyone’s attention and you may trend it. Keep some generic hashtags such as #socialmediamarketingagency or #socialmedia as well. 

Step 7: Buy Proper Social Media Marketing Tools

Please be ready to invest in the proper social media tools when you are planning to run a social media marketing agency. There are paid tools that you have to invest in to keep your content, communication, and deliverables up-to-date. As an example, using Grammarly for extremely professional and grammatically excellent content. 

Final Words

Are you done with all these already? Then it is time for you to prepare for a long run. Consider some tips before you take the head start: 

• Don’t underestimate your competitors no matter how skilled you and your team are. 
• Keep your eyes and ears open for any Google updates. Their algorithm keeps changing and you have to keep up with it. 
• Develop your skills on a regular basis. There is no end to knowledge. 
• Communication is the key. Negative or positive, always remember to communicate with your clients. 
• Put your team members first before your clients. They are your assets who are going to stay with you and bring more prospects to you if they are happy working for you. 

That’s all and we wish you good luck!