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Quick thought experiment: when I say jobs, thought leadership and networking, what social platform comes to mind? I’m willing to bet it’s LinkedIn. As a hub for thought leaders and job seekers alike, LinkedIn is a goldmine for uncovering new leads and talent alike. And LinkedIn employee advocacy is how you reach them.
Employee advocacy—the promotion of a company that an individual works at—can supercharge brand awareness, sales leads and talent acquisition on any channel.
In this article, let’s dive into why it’s time to start your strategy, and 10 tips to help you get started. Why is LinkedIn employee advocacy right for your social strategy?
There’s a reason 68% of marketers say their company has an advocacy strategy. It’s key to reaching untapped audiences, while getting your employees more engaged. And there’s plenty in it for your workforce, too.
With employees leaning on LinkedIn as their home to share content about their work and their own thought leadership, it’s the perfect place to kick off your program.
LinkedIn is easily the most important platform to prioritize your advocacy strategy. Here are a few ways advocacy on LinkedIn can lead to real business results.
Connect with decision makers
With over 65 million decision-makers on LinkedIn, it’s the place to connect with your next B2B buyers. And content is the key to reaching them.
From deep thought leadership to relevant memes commenting on industry insights, content is powerful. And considering most B2B buyers use social media to make purchasing decisions, interesting, persuasive content can translate into dollars.
Employee content receives about eight times more engagement than brand channel content. Imagine the impact encouraging your workforce to post could have. Build trust with prospective talent and buyers
People trust who they know—a friend’s recommendation is the top reason people buy on social media.
Employee posts are the digital equivalent to word-of-mouth marketing. Encouraging them to become thought leaders grows brand trust by amplifying trusted voices; voices that are three times more likely to be trusted than the voice of a CEO.
Trust matters, and translates to sales—72% of consumers say they feel connected to a brand when they trust it. And consumers who feel more connected to a brand are more likely to pick them over competitors. Similarly, most high-level professionals say thought leadership is a more trusted basis for assessing a vendor than marketing materials.
Brand trust also gives you the pick of top talent. After all, what would you believe first: a post saying “my company is the best place to work” written by a CEO, or an employee? Engage your employees
Having engaged employees doesn’t necessarily mean going into the office every day, or attending every happy hour.
An advocacy strategy helps employees engage with their business in a way that also empowers them to grow their own influence and networks. And companies with engaged employees are 20% more likely to retain them, according to LinkedIn.
And if it’s buy-in you’re worried about, consider this: most employees would post about their company if the process was made easy, which an advocacy strategy takes care of. 10 tips to master employee advocacy on LinkedIn
Now that you know the “why,” let’s get into “how” to get your LinkedIn employee advocacy strategy off the ground.
As with any strategy, the hardest part is starting. So we’ve got 10 actionable tips to kick off your strategy and master brand amplification in the process.
1: Optimize your company’s LinkedIn page
If you’re encouraging employees to post more, your company page needs to be presentable. After all, every six pieces of content shared on LinkedIn influences 13 company page views, one new follower and six views on your careers.
Our LinkedIn audit article goes much deeper into this. For now, here are a few quick wins to score right now: Check your branding: Your profile picture and cover image should be high quality, eye-catching and up-to-date.
Complete your profile: This is a no-brainer—an incomplete or barren profile doesn’t inspire trust.
Add fresh job postings: Eight people are hired every minute on LinkedIn. Post your open roles and remove outdated ones.
Recent post shares: Keep your posts up to date. Even better, engage with employee posts to show that you care. 2: Set goals for your strategy
A brand amplification strategy has cross-team benefits. Which means you’ll need cross-team goals.
To set goals for your strategy, consider what extending your LinkedIn reach can do for each of your teams.
For your marketing team, goals might center around brand awareness, building impressions and reach, increasing followers, etc.
For recruiting, decreasing time-to-hire, increasing applications and reducing turnover are huge.
And for sales, think about increasing leads and lead conversion.
Meet with other teams to show them how your program will benefit them, and to set relevant goals.
3: Sort your stakeholders
Advocacy is a team effort, through-and-through. Collaboration is the best ticket to success.
Identify who should be looped in at the least, and who can help out at most. Here are a few stakeholders to consider:
Project owners
Even when it’s collaborative, an advocacy program will need someone to oversee it. The project owners can be responsible for overseeing or actively: Curating content for employees to share
Creating copy for that content
Sharing an internal newsletter with share-ready content
Providing training and onboarding employees into the program
Gathering and reporting on performance results
And more Identify a project owner. Then, identify go-to advocates on each team to send you data, help curate or to simply encourage their team to post ready-made content you provide.
Content supporters
Consistently providing post-ready content and copy for employees is a key part of advocacy. But it’s also time consuming. Tapping your creative teams to help can provide new leadership opportunities, while lightening the workload.
“Our three-person social team has limited time,” says Aubree Smith, Content Specialist and advocacy champion at Sprout Social. “To support advocacy, the Content Team curates our highest priority content and writes pre-approved social copy for employees to use on LinkedIn.”
This collaboration has made it possible to provide more post-ready content. The better the content variety for employees, the more empowered they are to share thought leadership. Internal influencers
When you think of “influencers,” you probably think of accounts with a million followers. But you have influencers under your roof—your social-savvy employees.
Identify employees who are already active on social media, and those with a large LinkedIn network. Then, pitch your program to them. This can be streamlined with a tool like Sprout’s advocacy platform, which identifies employees with large follower counts.
Piloting your program to a small, interested group first will help you determine your processes before you extend it to the entire organization. And after your program has started, you can identify more all-star content sharers by looking at who shares advocacy posts the most often. 4: Curate content and create copy
From simple reshares, to lengthy “broetry,” there are many ways to post on LinkedIn—and that can be overwhelming.
“I’ve always wanted to be active on LinkedIn, but I would often get stuck on questions like: what should I post? Who am I writing for? Am I adding any value?” Sprout Growth Account Executive Chris Long tells us. With nearly 10,000 LinkedIn followers, he’s a certified Sprout influencer.
Not knowing what to post and posting anxiety block employees from posting—even when they want to. Solve this by providing employee advocacy content and pre-written post copy to make posting easier, and to ensure messaging is on-brand. Think about what your employees would be most likely to post. Celebratory employee spotlights and industry insights are a great place to start, as employees are most likely to share employee updates and educational content. Plus, they positively impact your brand image. In addition to providing content, you need a go-to place for employees to find it, and an easy way to regularly share new content with employees.
This is one of the best reasons to use a tool. Sprout’s advocacy platform provides a one-stop hub for you to curate LinkedIn copy and content, and for employees to find it. We even have a built-in newsletter tool to help you share new content with your teams as it’s curated. Request a demo
And all content shared from our advocacy platform looks native to LinkedIn, making your employees’ thought leadership look seamless.
As Chris puts it, “I love Employee Advocacy because it’s helped me answer those initial questions by giving me tracks to run on when I sit down to write. Big picture, it’s helped me gain confidence in my social presence.”
5: Show employees what’s in it for them
When it comes to employee benefits, monetary prizes are always enticing.
But our research shows that expanding networks and content pride are also major motivators. Chris sums it best: “Through advocacy I’m easily building ‘muscle memory’ by posting with more consistency. And over time I’ve seen a tangible impact on lead generation, people reaching out about job openings and making genuine industry connections.”
When you introduce your program, consider what benefits you’ll offer—like swag, monetary incentives or recognition. And highlight skills employees gain through advocacy, like becoming thought leaders, expanding their networks and making a business impact.
6: Onboard and train your employees
It can’t be overstated: the key to employee participation is ease.
Whether you offer live trainings, recorded trainings, document guides or all of the above, here are some areas to provide training for: What not to post: This is especially important if you have a flexible advocacy program and encourage employees to source their own content. Provide guidelines for on-brand language, brand values and dos/don’ts.
What to post: Provide guidance on the types of thought leadership, insights and resources that are appropriate to help shape employees’ own strategies.
Social media copywriting: Provide training on using hashtags, how to write for LinkedIn, emoji best practices and best practices for writing on social.
How to use your tools: If you’re using a robust solution like Sprout’s Employee Advocacy platform, train admins who curate and approve content, and employees who will use the advocacy tool as a hub to search for and post content directly to their channels. 7: Set an internal promotion schedule
If you’re running a promotion on social media, you know you don’t just post once.
The same goes for advocacy.
When you launch your program, promote it via email, internal newsletters, team message systems, town halls and more.
Then, keep advocacy top-of-mind with a consistent internal promotion schedule. This can include: A regular newsletter of ready-to-post content and copy for employees to share
Reminders in Slack or Teams when there’s a fresh batch of advocacy content
Leaderboard updates that celebrate employees who post the most
Updates on the impact their advocacy posts have had on the business 8: Secure executive buy-in
It’s always a bonus to have the boss on your side to boost your program resources.
But for an advocacy program, it can add a whole new level of executive-driven content. While employee voices are a powerful trust-builder, people also want to hear from your CEO—70% of consumers feel more connected to brands with CEOs active on social.
Ask your executives if they’d be willing to create posts or content employees can blast out to their own networks.
Not all content you provide to employees needs to be linked to a blog or video. You can also provide posts for them to reshare and add their own commentary to. When you use a platform like Employee Advocacy by Sprout, you can provide executive posts they can reshare, and their posts will look native to LinkedIn. 9: Measure, report and readjust
Once your program has started, revisit your goals. Look at how they’re tracking, and whether your strategy—or your goals—need a course correction.
And evaluate the advocacy program itself—with the knowledge that it won’t be perfect immediately. Evaluate your performance, survey employees and meet with your stakeholders to determine what’s working and what isn’t.
Pro tip: Share progress with your employees. They got you to this point. Celebrate how far their posts have pushed the strategy, your company’s LinkedIn presence and your business goals.
10: Practice what you preach
Share employee advocacy content yourself!
You don’t want to be a posting poser. Get your own thought leadership off the ground, as you encourage employees to share their own.
Beyond leading by example, this will also help you get a sense of how to use any employee advocacy tools you utilize, pain points in the process and will help you develop tips.
LinkedIn employee advocacy analytics: what to measure and why
We’ve talked about the importance of measuring and reporting on your progress. And there are some stand-out metrics you can use to measure employee advocacy efforts to prove ROI.
While LinkedIn’s analytics are a strong intro to measuring advocacy, they only go so deep. We’ll show you a few ways Sprout’s advocacy platform can help.
Let’s go through a few of them and why they matter.
Metrics that tell you, “how many people are using advocacy?”
Conversion rate
Look at what percentage of your employees opt in to your advocacy program to see if you need another push. If your number is high, this is also a great metric to share with executives for more buy-in.
Find this by dividing the number of employees who showed interest in your advocacy plan, divided by the total number of employees you opted-in.
Active participation
Not everyone will participate in your program—that’s ok. But you still need to assess whether you have healthy participation.
Looking at “Employees posting from recommendations” in LinkedIn’s baked-in advocacy analytics shows you how many posts have been shared by employees.
But using a platform like Employee Advocacy by Sprout gets more specific, providing a pre-calculated percentage of employees who actively post, average shares per employee and more. Top contributors and posts
Knowing who participates the most and which posts perform the best helps you determine who to give incentives to.
And knowing which of your curated posts get the most employee shares helps you understand what employees like to share, and what kinds of stories to curate more often.
LinkedIn shares
Shares provide another way to measure which posts employees are most interested in sharing.
This can also ladder up to your business goals and brand awareness.
Metrics that tell you, “how does advocacy support business goals?”
Advocacy post reach or impressions
Reach directly ladders up to brand awareness business goals.
In LinkedIn’s analytics, this metric tells you how many LinkedIn members interacted with advocacy posts shared by employees and their companies, location, job function, seniority and industry.
But Sprout’s advocacy platform measures potential reach by looking at the networks of each employee who shares your content, and how many new people that content may have reached.
Earned media value
Advocacy is essentially employee-driven advertising for your company. Earned media value allows you to directly compare the reach your employees’ reach to your paid efforts.
In other words, this metric can show your organization how many advertising dollars your advocacy program saved them. In Sprout’s advocacy platform, you can customize this to your needs.
Clicks and engagement
Looking at clicks and engagement is a great way to link social media advocacy efforts to driving traffic to your website, newsletter, blog and more.
And engagements can help you understand what content is successful beyond your employees, and entices new audiences to stop and interact with employee-shared content.
LinkedIn SSI
Social selling is one of the most powerful benefits LinkedIn can bring to your sales team. According to LinkedIn, salespeople who regularly share content are 45% more likely to exceed their quota.
As your sales team shares their own advocacy posts, their LinkedIn Social Selling Index will rise, laddering up to their personal lead goals and your business goals.
Strengthen your strategy with a LinkedIn employee advocacy tool
From content curation to measuring employee involvement, we’ve talked about a lot of moving parts in this article. The best way to make advocacy a cake walk for your employees, and to streamline your efforts, is with a LinkedIn employee advocacy tool.
Sprout’s Employee Advocacy platform streamlines every step of your strategy—from content curation and sharing, to measuring your efforts. Advocacy makes it easy for employees to get involved, easy for you to start and saves you crucial advertising dollars.
A tool is your ticket to creating a powerful program that has real impact—for your social and your entire organization. Find out more about how our solution will empower long-term results. Source link

As the social media landscape becomes more competitive, brands are in dire need of help to grow their presence. This is good news if you’re a social media marketing agency. But it also means more challenges to face as brands leave their entire social media marketing and management to the experts.
Agencies will need to ramp up their skillsets and toolkits to meet the needs of their clients. Whether you’re a social media agency that’s stepping up its game or a brand that’s looking for the perfect agency, this guide is exactly what you need.
In this guide, we provide you with an in-depth look at the value social media marketing agencies offer. We also give you a breakdown of what agencies need to do to help clients achieve their goals. Let’s dive in.
Table of Contents: Why hire a social media marketing agency
Modern marketers have access to a wealth of resources and information to manage their social media marketing. Comprehensive social media management tools (like what we offer at Sprout) further make their job easier. So why work with a social media marketing agency at all when brands could probably do it themselves?
Let’s find out the value that social media marketing agencies can bring. How can agencies help brands to fill gaps or level up their strategies?
Unparalleled experience
Agencies are capable of running campaigns and providing a level of knowledge that simply isn’t possible in-house.
Social media is so much more than just being present and posting the occasional photo. It also involves staying on top of the latest social algorithm updates. Not to mention the skills you need to navigate things like audience segmentation and social advertising. Again, that’s the benefit of hiring someone who’s been there and done that.
Agency professionals have years of real-life experience. They’ve also worked on an expansive range of client projects. These experiences have exposed them to social and marketing tactics that you just can’t learn through reading. As such, the expertise they offer isn’t easy to replicate in-house.
The same rings true when it comes to growing communities or engaging customers. Sure, you could do it yourself. But would it make sense in terms of your team’s time and energy? A campaign that might take months for brands to put together in-house might take just a few days for an agency.
Agencies have access to top-tier tools
Social media marketing agencies need to manage multiple campaigns at a time while doing so in the most efficient manner. That’s why they invest in the most powerful tools and analytics platforms in the market to achieve those results.
For example, let’s take the time to shine a light on success stories such as haarper. The Australia-based agency used Sprout’s tools to help their clients achieve impressive results. This included a 458% increase in Instagram engagement YoY. Agencies can juggle multiple campaigns
Agencies have the bandwidth to run multiple campaigns at once that could otherwise bog down your team internally. By working with a social media marketing agency, brands can make better use of their team’s time and get more done with the people they already have.
What services do social media marketing agencies offer
Now another major question is what kinds of services can brands expect from a social media marketing agency. Based on our Agency Pricing and Packaging Report, let’s take a look at the most common social media marketing services. Social media management Agencies can manage a brand’s entire social media presence, allowing it to save time and stress. Agencies can help brands plan their entire social strategy–from deciding what to post to which channels to focus on.
Content development
Many agencies now offer content development services in-house. They produce content that aligns with a brand’s voice and social strategy. Agencies can help brands make sense of their social media performance, allowing them to take action accordingly.
Paid social media
With organic reach declining, more and more brands are turning to social advertising. Agencies help brands to create, execute and manage successful paid social strategies. Agencies constantly stay on top of the latest trends and algorithm updates. They use those skills and knowledge toward boosting social engagement for clients.
Community management Creating engaged, active social communities can be rewarding yet time-consuming. For some brands, an agency is the only way to really make those communities possible.
7 strategies for social media marketing agencies
The following strategies will set your social agency apart from others and help your clients grow their business.
1. Analyze your clients’ audiences
Analyzing each client’s audience may seem obvious. Gone are the days of pure qualitative research and good old intuition. If you have access to data-driven insights, you should be leveraging them.
One thing to consider is the age of your clients’ target audiences. In fact, the 2022 Sprout Social Index™found a major difference in how different generations respond to brand marketing. For example, younger generations are more responsive to collaborations with influencers and celebrities. Meanwhile, only 9% of Baby Boomers value this type of content collaboration.
Additionally, Facebook still sees significant usage from consumers as a whole. TikTok has also surpassed Snapchat as one of the top platforms consumers prefer to use. If you’re unsure of the demographic makeup of your client’s audiences, you can easily find out with social media analytics software. Another way to analyze your client’s demographic audience is through social media listening. This will show you the demographics of your client’s social media followers. It also gives you a demographic breakdown of the people on social media who are actively discussing the brand. Additionally, you can also find their most engaged followers and get an overview of their profile. This information is invaluable to research when trying to determine not just who follows the brand, but who engages with it.
Using a tool like Sprout’s Twitter Trends Report, you can even see which topics and hashtags people frequently mention with the brand. This can give you a better understanding of what the target audience is interested in discussing. 2. Coordinate with other agencies
The world of agency marketing is incredibly competitive, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t collaborate with your peers. Agency marketers who team up with other social agencies reap benefits over those that seclude themselves.
Your inter-agency team may be your best bet for optimizing your social media efforts. What with social being the glue that holds disparate channel campaigns together? For instance, you may not be your client’s activation agency. But coordinating with whoever is allows you to collect and repurpose user-generated content (UGC) from your client’s events.
Let’s face it, your agency won’t be a perfect fit for every single client. Or maybe you have a contact at a social media agency whose specialty is exactly what you need to make your client’s social media strategy better. Or, by passing leads that you can’t take on or that aren’t a good fit to a different agency you strengthen the relationship and chances they return the favor.
Looking for some agencies to team up with? Check out the Sprout Social Agency Directory to find some of the leading organizations in the space.
3. Join partner programs
Joining partner programs is a great way to connect with brands that can help you scale your business. In many cases, these brand partners may even be able to get your agency in front of potential clients. The Sprout Social Agency Directory, for instance, consists of companies that are part of our Agency Partner Program.
Sprout Social’s Agency Partner Program offers exclusive benefits to help you scale your agency. Some cool perks include: Access to co-marketing opportunities with established brands
Hands-on training and custom reporting to ensure happy clients
Introductions to other agencies around the world
Specific resources created to help you succeed on social media Look around for all the programs relevant to yours and if it seems like a good fit, try and join.
4. Pull data for case studies
To close a deal as you’re pitching a client, it’s essential that you showcase past successes. So, it’s important that you have something to show for your expertise. Start by featuring a list of clients on your website, organized by name or vertical in so it’s easy to digest at a quick glance.
From there, build out case studies and customer videos, featuring as many of your top clients as possible. An effective case study tells the story of your agency’s project with a client. It highlights the challenges the client faced and your strategy for addressing them. Eventually, it shows how your agency provided a tactical solution and shares data points around the results of your efforts.
Keep in mind when creating case studies to include as much data as possible. Your potential clients want to know how you helped others succeed and the results that came with that success. If you’re using a social media tool it should be simple to pull data to show how you improved social presence month over month.
Sprout’s Cross-Network Reports, for instance, makes it easy to visualize your clients’ performance over time. You can extract these Reports and include them in your case studies. 5. Co-market with other companies or agencies
If you have an “in” with a large company or agency, look for co-marketing opportunities to tap into each other’s audiences. You could work with them on a piece of content that both organizations can promote for a mutually beneficial lift in reach.
Here at Sprout, we always make it a point to work with our agency partners to create joint content that we then share with our audiences.
Once we’ve co-created a piece of content with our agency partners, both organizations get to work promoting it.
6. Scale content with your clients
Some agencies may spend a good deal of their team’s time coordinating with clients on what to post on social channels. This is often the case if your agency offers services for strategy and content development. Stay ahead of your content calendar with these two strategies.
Get Pre-Approved Content in BulkWork with your clients to identify a cache of approved creative assets. You can then look for opportunities to repurpose that content when creating a content calendar. This content can live in an Asset Library for quick access to appropriate imagery.
Give Clients Access to Your Social Tool for ApprovalsUse the right social media tool to invite your client stakeholders into your account. This gives them visibility into your content publishing workflow so they can be a part of it.
7. Get clients into the reports
Clients want to keep their finger on the pulse of what’s happening with their social media campaigns and to have easy access to the data. So, it helps if you can give them direct access to social media reports by inviting them into your social media tool. How agencies can prove the value of social media
Social media marketing agencies need to establish value by showing their clients real results that matter to them. So how exactly will you prove the ROI of social media?
The first conversation to have with your clients is ideally about their social marketing goals. You can then assess the feasibility of those goals and what social success looks like.
No campaign can (or will) succeed if you don’t know what success looks like, and you will never be able to scale your agency if you can’t satisfy client goals. Now, this may sound harsh but bear with us as we walk you through an ideal process to start your client relationships and campaigns on the right foot.
If you can’t determine what your customers will achieve from your efforts, then you won’t be able to prioritize those strategies. You’d be merely throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks.
That’s not how you create a great Italian dish, and that’s not how you create a strong agency-client relationship.
Table the ROI discussion
“What is the ROI of social media?”
It’s a question all agencies and in-house marketers inevitably face, but one that is incredibly complicated to answer.
Other digital channels like paid search, SEO or email may have a clear path to revenue generation. Meanwhile, telling that story with social is more complicated.
If you’re frustrated with having conversations around ROI with your clients just know that you’re not alone. According to the 2022 Sprout Social Index™, proving ROI is the second biggest challenge for social media teams. Don’t get us wrong, social media is definitely a channel you can generate leads and revenue with. It’s also one of Sprout Social’s strongest channels for driving growth.
But know that social media is so much more than a place to blast messages. Marketers struggle to quantify ROI on social media because as a channel it plays so many roles.
How can you successfully navigate the question of “What is the ROI on social media?” Start by defining your client’s goals and then discussing what impact those goals have on their organization as a whole. Ask them: What do you want from social?
Choose goals with your clients
We say that social media is more than a place to blast messages and hope for revenue. So what else is it for? Your clients may want to build their presence on social to increase their brand awareness. While most clients may focus on sales and lead generation, others may also want to build an engaged community.
Get clarity on what your clients want to achieve through social. More importantly, provide a guiding light on what goals might be relevant to them based on their overall business goals.
Choose key performance indicators based on goals
Key performance indicators (KPIs) vary depending on the goals of the campaign. For example, a campaign to raise brand awareness will need different KPIs from one that aims to generate new sales and leads.
Here are some solid goals and the KPIs you can optimize for. Increase brand awareness: Impressions, reach, audience growth
Increase community engagement: Inbound messages, replies sent, audience growth
Increase web traffic: Clicks, website visits
Generate sales and leads: Clicks, website visits, use URL tracking to track social traffic
Distribute content: Messages sent, potential reach, responses, clicks
Increase brand advocacy: Following, social trends reporting, reach, clicks
Support customers: Response rate, response time
Grow influencer marketing: Following, social trends reporting Once you’ve chosen the metrics that indicate success you can set more quantifiable goals. However, those goals should also depend on historic values and a baseline. A client may tell you they want a million new impressions. But if you don’t know how many impressions they typically see, then you have no idea if that goal is realistic and achievable.
Pro Tip: Use a social media analytics tool to audit your client’s social media performance. This will include past impressions, clicks, growth rate, response time, response speed and more. Only then will you be confident in accepting, negotiating or rejecting a proposal.
Navigating competitive benchmarking
Throughout the relationship, clients may ask you to benchmark their performance to others in their industry. This can be a challenging discussion if you’re not an expert in the specific industry they serve, but there are some things you can do. Look to industry standard reports Find reports that pull information on social media performance by vertical. This may not be as specific as comparing a client’s social presence directly to that of a competitor. But it gives enough information to compare their presence to the industry as a whole.
Ideally, you’d want to look at industry standards on the following metrics: Response rate: The percent of consumer messages needing a response that actually get one
Response time: How long brands take (in hours) to respond to consumer messages that need a response
Response percentage: How many messages brands receive on social that require a response
Posts per replies: How many promotional messages brands publish vs. how many responses they give
Brand engagement ranking: How responsive brands are to consumers
Consumer engagement ranking: How vocal consumers are with brands 2. Use deep listening tools
Powerful social media listening tools can look through social media data to pull competitive insights. You can find data on how often each brand gets a mention, the impression volume, the general sentiment around the brand and more. 3. Use social media analytics
Once you’ve secured a client and set them up with social media analytics, you can start making a side-by-side comparison. Stack up things like audience growth, message volume, response rates and more. Stay flexible and adjust your approach
As your campaigns take flight make sure to consistently review your social reports. Look closely at clients’ KPIs and gauge whether or not they’re on track to miss, hit or exceed your clients’ expectations.
Find ways to constantly optimize your strategy and take these lessons back to the client but go beyond just telling them what works. Show them how to keep evolving with each interaction and soon enough, you’ll be ready to set your next goals.
How to collaborate with clients
Maintaining collaborative relationships will increase a client’s trust in your work. It will also streamline your social media marketing and earn you loyal customers.
Figuring out methods for better collaboration is an agency pastime. But true collaboration can be tricky between juggling multiple clients, tools and social accounts.
These solutions can help improve collaboration across multiple channels and touchpoints. It will also keep you from scrambling to catch up with clients.
Get the clients involved
Many agencies are used to being the “doers”—doing the publishing, the community management, the reporting. But as an agency scales and brings in new business, being the doer for every client isn’t always an option. There are only so many days in the week.
Moreover, there’s a risk of disconnects and miscommunications when you’re the one handling everything. It’s important to get your clients involved with a strong communication strategy. Keep them informed about important updates and progresses. You could even get them to jump in on some of the more exciting conversations that are going on.
The clients will love to see the happy customers they have, and you’ll love not having to answer every single message that requires attention.
For example, let’s say you notice someone is frequently using a client’s branded hashtag. You can nudge the client with a message like, “Hey, here’s a good opportunity to interact.”
It’s an easy step that lets your clients know you’re right there with them and constantly seeking out opportunities for them. It allows you to provide them with actionable expertise, even in times when you’re unable to be the doer.
Take full advantage of a shared asset library
A shared asset library is a library of client-approved content that you can easily repurpose and publish. It minimizes the hassle of gaining client approval for each piece of content you publish on their account. You can do this with anything from Dropbox to Google Drive or a social tool with an asset library like Sprout. The benefit of a social tool is that you can: Sort by media type
Sort by tags
Sort by authors
Give different levels of access to different individuals An asset library really simplifies collaborative publishing. It helps to create a collaborative workflow between client and agency. An asset library also lets you customize the experience of asset management.
Sometimes a client just needs to see what they need to see. So, you can sort different assets within a unique hierarchy to avoid overwhelming them. This could be with the help of folders or permissions.
A joint asset library makes social media publishing seamless and will inevitably save you tons of time on social media.
Align on customer communication with tasking
What do you do when you come across a message from a disgruntled customer? Perhaps that message needs a carefully crafted response or it needs immediate escalation. Regardless of the case, you need to establish a workflow with your clients for when these situations arise.
Create a process wherein you can submit problematic social messages to the client as a task to align on healthy, on-brand responses easily. It’s not lazy to send things to your client. In fact, it automates and streamlines the sometimes tumultuous and lengthy process of manual damage control. Just make sure the client is set up to handle that message and include your suggestions for a response. Anything as easy as an email with your note can suffice.
Without fully handing over the wheel, you can ensure you and your client are making decisions together as a team.
Stay ahead of client requests and showcase value with reports
Clients seek different things when it comes to reporting. Some like to know how their audience size is growing. Others want to see how quickly their service teams are responding to requests. Regardless of what the client wants, there’s no limit to the amount of data you can pull from social media.
Carve out time within your week to create or update these reports for your clients and send them over before they even have to ask. You can also use social media reporting tools to automate the process. This would allow you to automatically send presentation-ready reports to your clients at a specified time.
It’s normal to automate processes during particularly hectic times for your agency. But to still have control in an automated process with customization is a real win/win.
Sprout Social for agencies
Maybe you’re providing full-service social solutions or stepping in for a specific campaign or project. No matter the range of services, agencies understand how to deliver results. And within a sole social agency, each client engagement can call for a distinct setup. While some may require one-to-many, others may need many-to-one or collaborative setups.
When agency teams need tools to implement these social initiatives for their clients, they use Sprout Social. With Sprout’s publishing, engagement and reporting tool sets, agencies can utilize one or combine all to meet their needs. In addition, Sprout offers a flexible account structure and custom permissions. This makes client management more scalable. You can customize your plan as client portfolios grow and objectives change.
Let us show you the different ways Sprout can accommodate your agency’s working style.
Agency use case 1: Full-service solutions Agency type: Full-service social media marketing
Client engagement: One-to-many
Agency set up: A mid-sized agency with a client portfolio of local and regional brands. Works in teams of social strategists and Community Managers. Each Community Manager is responsible for fully managing social programs on behalf of four client brands each.
How Sprout powers the agency: Managing social media for all your clients is easy using Sprout. Your team can publish, engage and analyze all from one platform. Community Managers use the Scheduler to publish time-sensitive messages at a specific time. This allows you to get the most out of published content. Or use ViralPost to ensure your client’s audience sees content at the optimal time for engagement.
Monitor and engage with incoming messages across all client profiles and networks using the Smart Inbox. Filter the inbox to concentrate on certain profiles, networks or message types. Then mark messages as complete as you work towards inbox zero.
The mobile apps enable each Community Manager to stay connected even while on the go; team members can publish and engage right from their phones.
Agency use case 2: Campaign solutions Agency type: Campaign marketing / Campaign management
Client engagement: Many-to-one
Agency set up: A large global agency with a client portfolio of international brands. Works in teams that are responsible for managing social campaigns on behalf of each client.
How Sprout powers the agency: Sprout enables teams to gather strategic insights during the planning phase. It helps them manage customer engagements during execution and analyze results post-campaign. The analyst uses the Twitter Listening Report to measure keyword volume. This helps to inform the campaign’s hashtag and creative strategy. It guides the ideation process for a client campaign. The Message Approval workflow helps to streamline client approvals. This allows stakeholders to approve or reject with feedback.
During campaign execution, the team makes use of tools such as the Asset Library, Message Tagging and Content Calendar. These tools allow them to plan and organize outgoing social posts. Throughout the campaign, the team also categorizes incoming messages with Message Tagging.
Once the campaign wraps, the analyst uses the Tag Report to track volume and determine sentiment. It also helps them analyze overall campaign performance to report back to the client.
Agency use case 3: Content strategy solutions Agency type: Content marketing
Client engagement: Collaborative
Agency set up: An agency with a client portfolio of national brands appoints a content marketing team to each client project. Teams help to plan and execute content marketing strategies for clients.
How Sprout powers the agency: Content, context and audience are the keys to a successful content strategy. Sprout’s publishing toolset enables agency teams to create and publish content effectively. It allows them to tailor the content according to specific platforms and audiences. As your content team starts to create content, they use Compose to draft messages. From here, they can add imagery from the Asset Library. Further, applying audience targeting helps to ensure the client’s messages reach the right audience.
The Message Approval workflow helps to streamline client approvals. This allows stakeholders to approve or reject with feedback. After approval and scheduling, the team can identify publishing gaps using the Content Calendar. They can then repeat the process to fill those holes.
The Sent Messages Report enables the team to analyze the content’s performance and adjust the content strategy as needed. Export the report to PDF for a presentation-ready version for your client. You can also select the CSV file to further analyze specific KPIs and data points.
Agency use case 4: Community management solutions Agency type: Community management and engagement
Client engagement: One-to-many/Collaborative
Agency set up: A niche agency that focuses on multi-location businesses and manages a portfolio of 25 franchise brands. These brands maintain hundreds of local, regional and national social profiles. Each project team is responsible for managing customer care on behalf of the client’s entire portfolio of social properties.
How Sprout powers the agency: Reactive communication and customer care is vital to building and maintaining social relationships. Agencies use Sprout’s engagement toolset to discover, manage and address incoming messages on behalf of their clients. The Smart Inbox is where your account team will monitor and engage with incoming messages across profiles and networks. Set up Brand Keywords so Community Managers can find and engage in conversations that are important to its client. This may include campaign hashtags, location check-ins or even competitor names, but not direct mentions.
As messages stream into the inbox, Community Managers collaborate with each other or with the client. They assign messages as Tasks to ensure the right person is responding to the message. Community Managers mark messages as complete as the account team works towards inbox zero.
Analysts use the Engagement Report to track response rates and times to meet the client’s engagement KPIs, as well as report on those efforts.
Agency use case 5: Analytics solutions Agency type: Social analytics
Client engagement: Many-to-one
Agency set up: An agency with a client portfolio of national brands appoints one team of analysts per client account. Each team is responsible for setting and analyzing social strategy on behalf of each client.
How Sprout powers the agency: If your agency drives social strategy and execution for your clients, you need data to enforce its effectiveness. Sprout’s suite of reports enables your agency to prove its worth and use insights to tweak your strategy. The Group Report is a high-level overview that provides aggregate data across social networks. This gives your client a better understanding of social efforts as a whole.
Pair the Group Report with the network profile reports for an in-depth look at specific social channels. Use these reports to demonstrate growth and audience behaviors across all channels and profiles.
Export the reports to PDF for a presentation-ready version for your client. You can also select the CSV file to further analyze specific KPIs and data points.
Agency use case 6: Customer service solutions Agency type: Customer service
Client engagement: One-to-many
Agency set up: A mid-sized customer service agency with a client portfolio of national brands. Appoints Customer Advocate teams to manage customer care around the clock for each client.
How Sprout powers the agency: Creating a wonderful customer experience is important for agencies focusing on customer service. Sprout’s customer service toolset enables you to execute and analyze your efforts. The Smart Inbox is where advocacy teams monitor and engage with incoming messages across profiles and networks. As messages stream into the inbox, the Customer Advocate Lead collaborates with the Customer Advocates or the client. They assign messages as Tasks to ensure the right person is responding to the message.
Account Directors use the Task Performance Report to analyze Tasks usage and completion. They use the Team Report in conjunction to track their team’s social performance. They assess performance based on reply metrics by individual. They also look at performance across all profiles and specific profiles.
Export the reports to PDF for a presentation-ready version for your client. You can also select the CSV file to further analyze specific KPIs and data points.
The Sprout Social partner program
Partner with Sprout Social to define and validate social ROI to your current clients. Be on the path to win new business for your digital marketing agency and connect with strategic social marketers.
Agency business is tough. While it’s rewarding work, #agencylife can sometimes feel like being on an island of your own. That’s where our Agency Partner Program sets out to bridge the gap and make things a little easier.
Everything’s better with a partner
This is a fast-paced industry and keeping a finger on the pulse of the latest and greatest isn’t always effortless. But there’s power in partnership. Doing so enables agencies to reduce inefficiencies by leveraging resources. With Sprout in the picture, they gain full-suite access to enterprise-level social tools.
“[Partnership programs] are a great investment for your agency,” Jared DiVincent, Founder of SocialCompass Marketing, said. “It provides you with invaluable resources, keeps your team on the cutting edge of what’s happening in your industry and puts you on a platform to speak to that many more prospects.”
Agency partners get early access to Sprout’s newest product features. They also enjoy the ability to voice opinions on product development. This allows an agency to get to know the product inside and out. It helps not only our agency partners, but Sprout’s own team.
Lucas Vandenberg, Fifty & Five Managing Partner, thinks the biggest value of being a Sprout Agency Partner is in having that extra access.
“For us, giving additional feedback on new tools that are coming out is hugely valuable in understanding that the tool is really created and customized specifically for our needs,” Vandenberg said.
Being a part of a program like this gives agencies like Fifty & Five a model for scalable pricing. They also have access to a whole team at Sprout who can really understand the intricacies of the agency business model itself.
A connected community
The Agency Partner Program goes beyond leveraging resources and beta-testing product enhancements. Partnering through a program like this boils down to growing together. It involves leveraging one another’s experiences as a community. It also enables you to gain insight into what others like you are doing in the industry. In short, it’s a relationship.
An open opportunity to interact and idea-share with other marketers like yourself is one community benefit. But Brooke Sellas, Founder and CEO of B Squared Media, feels it’s more the nurturing nature of the program that lends itself so well to creating a community.
“I can call [Sprout Social] on the phone and ask them how to do something for the 50th time and they’re not annoyed,” Sellas said. “They just honestly care about how we’re doing, where we’re going and solving things for us.”
But Sellas stresses that it’s not just about getting on the phone to talk product or roadmap.
“It’s also the camaraderie,” Sellas said. “Meeting other people, forming those relationships, getting to know what Sprout’s all about and really just forming that bond with your software partner, which I don’t know that very many people can say that about their tool.”
Building your business and growing your agency
Fifty & Five’s Vandenberg explains that his agency has gained exposure to new and great opportunities in the last year. This is all a result of being a Sprout partner and building brand awareness as a vetted agency.
“One of the ways the program has helped us grow is by giving us access to new leads and new prospects,” Vandenberg said.
DiVincent feels similarly: “Saying that we’re an agency founding partner and a Sprout Social partner definitely helps our prospects and helps us gain more clients. It helps us pitch easier and it just builds that layer of trust that we couldn’t do on our own.”
The Agency Partner Program believes that partnerships depend on mutual, sustainable growth. And it is Sprout’s goal to continually support that.
Sellas sums it up best: “Before joining the Agency Partner Program, I loved Sprout. After joining, I want to marry Sprout.”
Advance your agency with Sprout Social
Great ideas get clients in the door, but your ability to execute is what builds trust.
The building blocks of a successful agency-client partnership are similar to those of any great relationship: communication, flexibility, transparency, trust and attention. Sprout’s agency tools can help you meet those needs and exceed client expectations.
Try Sprout Social for free with a 30-day trial. Source link

Si las plataformas de redes sociales fueran adolescentes de una comedia de los 80, Tumblr sería el niño raro, pero genial. Tú sabes cuál. Aparentemente inaccesible pero en realidad súper agradable. Están obsesionados con intereses de nicho y las bromas que crean. Además, tienen un gusto impecable en música y ropa (simplemente no el tipo de música y ropa con la que crees que podrías salirte con la tuya). Desde 2007 hasta finales de la década de 2010, Tumblr se mantuvo firme en el mercado de las redes sociales alternativas. Perdieron el rumbo por un tiempo, pero está claro que Tumblr está de vuelta con una comprensión de lo que quiere su audiencia y la voluntad de ejecutarlo. Tumblr regresa
Tumblr todavía se siente como una reliquia de una época diferente. La interfaz de la plataforma esencialmente no ha cambiado desde la década de 2010. Pero eso es exactamente lo que le gusta a la gente. La alimentación cronológica inversa es el anti-algoritmo: ves exactamente lo que has seguido y básicamente nada más. Tumblr se siente libre.
En un mundo donde las plataformas se definen cada vez más por el tipo de contenido que consumes y creas (Twitter es para texto, TikTok y YouTube son para video, Instagram es para todo lo visual), el entorno de Tumblr invita a la diversidad de publicaciones. Es posible que vea un GIF junto a una publicación de texto junto a una imagen. Y los usuarios, especialmente los más jóvenes, están respondiendo a esa libertad. De los 135 millones de usuarios mensuales que visitan el sitio de microblogs, el 48 % son de la Generación Z. Ese número podría ser aún mayor ahora, ya que Tumblr tuvo un aumento de adopción del 96 % entre el 27 de octubre de 2022 y el 17 de noviembre de 2022. @Kedreeva Usuario de Tumblr El entusiasmo por Tumblr se está extendiendo a otras plataformas. Según la herramienta de escucha de Sprout Social, entre el 4 de octubre de 2022 y el 17 de noviembre de 2022, hubo más de un millón de tuits sobre Tumblr. Con todos los renovados interesados ​​en Tumblr, los especialistas en marketing podrían estar considerando la plataforma para su estrategia social. Pero antes de que las marcas puedan decidir si Tumblr es adecuado para ellas, deben comprender los matices de la plataforma.
La visión de Tumblr de la cultura
Si otras plataformas se definen por su tipo de contenido, Tumblr se define por su cultura. Las plataformas de redes sociales son experiencias inherentemente culturales, pero Tumblr se siente diferente. Twitter es conocido por la respuesta de Tweet de citas picantes, mientras que Instagram es conocido por sus cuadrículas estéticamente agradables. Pero Tumblr, con pequeñas reglas sobre el tipo de contenido o el tema, es conocido por ser extraño.
Características como el rebling crean chistes internos virales que no tienen sentido fuera de contexto y, a veces, tienen muy poco sentido dentro del contexto. El resultado es una experiencia extraña, pero placentera, parecida a un sueño febril. Tumblr como marca se ha inclinado completamente hacia donde su audiencia ha llevado la plataforma. Ofreciendo información para los no iniciados
A Tumblr le gusta burlarse de sí mismo. Los usuarios del sitio han apodado cariñosamente a Tumblr como el «sitio del infierno» debido a su naturaleza caótica. En lugar de realizar cambios en la plataforma para frenar el caos, Tumblr reconoció que sus usuarios quieren más y está más que dispuesto a cumplir. La plataforma está tan dedicada a su cultura que creó un blog llamado «Hellsite High» para que los nuevos usuarios aprendan a asimilar y contribuir a la cultura. El blog de consejos cubre todo, desde las mejores prácticas hasta los atajos de teclado para evitar el agotamiento. Es el tipo de contenido irónico que ha convertido a Tumblr en un favorito de culto. Absurdo a la venta ahora
Es difícil imaginar productos minoristas para la mayoría de las plataformas de redes sociales. Pero Tumblr no es la mayoría de las plataformas. A los usuarios de Tumblr no solo les encanta el contenido que facilita el sitio, también les encanta el sitio en sí. Tumblr está monetizando la devoción de sus usuarios con una tienda en línea.
Algunos productos se basan en bromas internas, como un par de cordones de zapatos con una referencia a Supernatural, un fandom básico en la plataforma. Otros, como los pines de verificación física, se burlan de las características sociales comunes que no existen en Tumblr. También hay productos que comentan sobre el estado de Tumblr, como un pañuelo agotado que dice «Crecí en Tumblr» o un cuaderno de marca con «Bienvenido de nuevo a lo extraño» estampado en la parte posterior. Estos productos son absurdos, pero también lo es la plataforma. Funciona de alguna manera. Una guía para el marketing de Tumblr
Si es un especialista en marketing, probablemente se esté preguntando cómo puede aprovechar el retorno de Tumblr. La respuesta es un poco complicada. Tumblr puede ser una vía excelente para las marcas adecuadas, pero tiene que tener sentido para la tuya. Aquí hay algunos consejos para la comercialización en Tumblr.
Evalúa si el marketing de Tumblr es adecuado para tu negocio
Tumblr nunca ha sido conocido por su moderación. Su método se basa en etiquetas de usuario para publicaciones que pueden ofender, como desnudez o temas delicados. Dicho esto, las marcas deben evaluar seriamente su tolerancia al riesgo con Tumblr. Incluso si sus publicaciones están impecablemente limpias, el algoritmo cronológico inverso significa que podrían aparecer junto a algo más explícito en el feed de su audiencia. Tumblr es mejor para las marcas más atrevidas con una visión más relajada de la seguridad de la marca que no se vería afectada negativamente por tal yuxtaposición.
Las marcas también deben evaluar si su audiencia está incluso en Tumblr. La audiencia de Tumblr es más joven y alternativa. El contenido de fandom, los productos favoritos de culto, las líneas de ropa y los intereses de nicho funcionarán mejor en Tumblr. Si vende joyas de lujo o productos para bebés, es probable que su estrategia social sea mejor en otro lugar.
Las publicaciones orgánicas reinan para el marketing de Tumblr
Tumblr nunca ha sido bueno con los anuncios. Son torpes y debido a que no todas las marcas se ajustan a la estética de Tumblr, nunca han sido un gran generador de ingresos para la empresa. La plataforma incluso lanzó una suscripción premium sin publicidad a principios de 2022, lo que significa que los usuarios avanzados ni siquiera verán sus anuncios. Lo que significa que tus publicaciones orgánicas deben ser perfectas.
El enfoque único de Tumblr para el algoritmo significa que tus seguidores verán más de tus publicaciones que en otras plataformas, lo que hace que este sea el espacio perfecto para publicaciones orgánicas. Cuando agrega la libertad de tipo de publicación por la que Tumblr es conocido, es una combinación de marketing ganadora.
Pero tenga cuidado. Los usuarios de Tumblr son algunos de los usuarios de redes sociales más inteligentes que existen, y los consumidores clasifican la autenticidad como el segundo factor más importante para ellos en las redes sociales. Pasan mucho tiempo en línea y ven muchos anuncios. Si el contenido no es auténtico e interesante, se darán cuenta. Dedica tiempo a tu estrategia social de Tumblr para asegurarte de que resuene.
Diviértete con tu marketing de Tumblr
Tumblr es entrañablemente extraño. Y eso lo hace divertido. Tumblr no es el lugar para anuncios abotonados o imágenes de productos HD. Tumblr es un lugar para divertirse con su marketing. Se pone raro. Vuelva a publicar publicaciones ligeramente no relacionadas que su audiencia podría disfrutar. Esta es una oportunidad para poner la personalidad de su marca en primer lugar y su línea de productos en segundo lugar. Quién sabe, podrías convertirte en la próxima broma interna viral.
Plataformas emergentes (y reemergentes)
Las redes sociales son impredecibles. La mayoría de la gente habría dicho que Tumblr tenía tantas posibilidades de reaparecer como Napster, pero las cosas cambian constantemente. Como especialistas en marketing, debemos ser conscientes de esos cambios y estar listos para cambiar la estrategia en un instante, cuando tenga sentido. Es complicado evaluar si una plataforma emergente es adecuada para usted, pero es un aspecto importante de su estrategia de redes sociales.
¿Quieres saber más sobre las nuevas plataformas? Consulta este artículo sobre BeReal. Source link