By As a marketing agency, you’re in a unique position to help these businesses grow while streamlining their operations so they can focus on growth and success. By offering the right social media management services list to your clients, you’ll have the tools you need to grow your own business while helping others succeed.
Be successful with social media on behalf of your clients by downloading “The ultimate guide to effective social media for business” now.
To help you get started, we’ve created a list of 20 social media ideas for businesses to keep your customers happy and your own agency successful.
Table of Contents
- Social media strategy development
- Account setup and optimization
- Content creation
- Content calendar creation and management
- Community management
- Social media advertising
- Influencer marketing
- Social listening and monitoring
- Analytics and reporting
- Audience research and segmentation
- Hashtag research
- Contest and giveaway management
- Influencer outreach and management
- Social media crisis management
- Social media training and workshops
- Social media account audits
- Employee advocacy programs
- Social media integration with other marketing channels
- Geotargeting and local marketing
- Social media trend analysis
1. Social media strategy development
Social media is more than just creating a post and waiting for comments, likes, and new followers. Instead, it requires a cautiously planned and well-executed strategy that caters to a brand’s audience and goals.
Developing such a strategy requires you, the social media manager, to research who the primary audience is and how they’re using social media. For example, knowing that 93% of brands have earned new customers by posting video content (Animoto) should encourage a social media strategy that incorporates a high density of video content.
What you need to know
If you’re planning to add strategy development to your social media services list, you’ll need to know how to allocate resources, including time and budget, to this service, as well as what to charge your clients. Help yourself figure it out by starting with a desired hourly rate and tracking the hours you and/or your team put in.
2. Account setup and optimization
Social media is more than just creating a post and waiting for engagement. It requires strategic planning and that starts with account setup and optimization—a service you might want to consider adding to your social media management services list. Start by understanding your client’s target audience and selecting platforms that align well with their brand.
Optimize their profiles by writing a clear, concise, keyword-rich bio and eye-catching visuals such as emojis where appropriate and a great profile photo, whether that’s a logo, a team photo, or a product highlight. When posting, you can optimize your client’s account with platform-specific features like hashtags and location tags, as well as relevant keywords.
What you need to know
When you’re offering account setup as a service, determine whether you’ll charge a flat rate or bill hourly. Ensure you’re putting your most social-media-savvy team members on the job to provide your client with optimal results.
3. Content creation
The key to a successful social media strategy is the creation of content that’s compelling, engaging, and shareable. Creating such content requires a thoughtful approach that combines high-quality graphics or videos with persuasive copywriting and hashtag/keyword research. The right content increases engagement, attracts new followers, and most importantly, amplifies that brand’s overall reach.
However, content creation is a time-consuming task that most business owners and managers don’t have time for in their schedule. That’s where you come in. This service is often an easy sell for you and a lifesaver for those who purchase it.
What you need to know
Good content relies on strong copywriting so if you’re writing chops aren’t where they should be, hire a copywriter to help out in this department. The same can be said for graphic design. If you need help on both fronts, consider a white-label social media management service that you can sell without putting in the work.
4. Content calendar creation and management
If you want to boost client satisfaction, add content calendar creation and management to your social media management services list. Businesses need a well-planned and organized content calendar to ensure their content is consistent and strategically distributed across various social media platforms.
Your content calendar creation and management services should consist of a regular analysis of your client’s brand, target audience, and industry trends. This analysis can help you identify relevant themes, topics, and dates to incorporate in their calendar each month.
What you need to know
Content calendars should contain a mix of industry-specific events, holidays, trending topics, and company news. Utilizing a tool such as Vendasta’s Social Marketing can help you effectively create and manage content calendars for multiple clients, schedule posts ahead of time, and analyze the performance of each post.
5. Community management
Staying on top of engagement is a difficult task, especially for business owners and managers who have their plates full of other important duties. Offering community management on your social media manager services list is a great way to keep your clients happy and help them put more time and energy back into their already busy schedule.
What you need to know
Community management is a big job, especially if you’re working with multiple brands. It consists of monitoring social media platforms for activity from followers (also known as social listening) and engaging with your clients’ audiences by responding to comments, messages, and mentions positively. When you’re offering this service, it's critical to understand and abide by your clients’ guidelines for social media management to ensure their reputation and image remain intact.
6. Social media advertising
Paid campaigns on social media are a great way to help your clients garner attention from a broader audience and achieve quantitative goals such as sales, email subscribers, and followers.
What you need to know
Setting up an ad account on Facebook, Instagram, Google Ads, and other social media networks requires you to provide specific details about your target audience, as well as maximum expenditure limits. These are details you’ll need to obtain from your client prior to setting up their advertisements.
Additionally, you’ll require ad copy that converts if you want to be successful, so consider hiring a copywriter if that’s not your niche, as well as an assortment of keywords that help your ad get attention from the right audience.
7. Influencer marketing
Influencer marketing has become an indispensable tool for brands. It helps them tap into the established audiences and credibility of influential online figures that appeal to their ideal customers. When brands partner with relevant influencers, they can rapidly amplify their reach, increase brand awareness, and drive engagement.
What you need to know
If you’re going to offer influencer marketing on your social media management services list, you’ll need to allocate a budget for collaborations. Consider the size of an influencer’s audience, their niche, and your client’s desired level of partnership when determining how much you should spend. While some influencers are happy to promote a brand in exchange for free or discounted products, others require monetary compensation.
8. Social listening and monitoring
Social listening was mentioned above as part of a community management service package; however, on its own this service can improve client satisfaction. This service consists of watching online for brand mentions, industry trends, and competitor activities to help gather insights and seek out areas for improvement or inspiration for new advertising and social media campaigns.
What you need to know
When performed manually, social listening can be time-consuming and at times, ineffective. Utilize a tool such as Social Marketing to automate social listening for you and ensure you’re not missing a thing.
9. Analytics and reporting
There are several key performance indicators (KPIs) that can offer you and your client insight into their social media presence and success. KPIs to watch include comments, likes, total reach, total impressions, and share of voice. These metrics can help determine what types of posts perform best and how effective the profile is as a whole.
What you need to know
Most platforms offer built-in reporting that includes important data about your client’s social media account. Combine this data with that provided by your social media management platform and you’ll quickly be able to gather the data you need to build the most effective social media campaigns for your clients.
10. Audience research and segmentation
Clients that target a broader audience can benefit from audience research and segmentation on your social media management services list. This consists of conducting research about the target audience (ages, locations, preferences, etc.) and creating smaller segments to better personalize content.
What you need to know
Audience research and segmentation isn’t a one-time job. It requires ongoing analysis to determine which customers are engaging, which aren’t, and how to best hold their attention.
11. Hashtag research
Hashtags are ever-changing and your clients who are already operating their businesses often don’t have time to keep on top of them. Providing this on your social media account manager services list is a good way to ensure consistent work from your client while making their life a lot easier.
What you need to know
When you’re selling social media packages, utilizing relevant hashtags is a must. You’ll need to ensure that every post on your client's page includes a mix of local hashtags, industry hashtags, and trending hashtags to gain maximum exposure. Use your scheduling tool along with manual research on your clients’ platforms to find the best hashtags for each post.
12. Contest and giveaway management
Contests are a great way to give your clients’ engagement metrics a massive boost. On platforms like Instagram and Facebook, giveaways typically consist of having followers like and/or save a post and either share it with friends by posting to their Instagram Stories or by tagging their handles in the comments.
What you need to know
While an Instagram or Facebook contest generally requires minimal effort, you will need to have enough time to plan for prizes, seek collaborations if necessary, and create a graphic and copy for an attention-grabbing post. You’ll also require a plan for drawing the winner, whether that’s a bowl full of names or an online random name chooser.
13. Influencer outreach and management
If your client is working with influencers, they’ll need someone to act as a point of contact. And if they’re not, they might be interested in hiring someone who’s Instagram-famous to promote their brand, products, or services to a broader audience. In some cases, you might find yourself with influencers who’ve already built a connection with the brand and in others, you may be seeking out all-new talent.
What you need to know
As mentioned earlier, influencer marketing can differ vastly depending on the influencer and their audience. Determine what they’ll be paid based on those factors and when determining your own budget for the client, be sure to factor in the hours it takes to find an influencer as well as any time spent managing them.
14. Social media crisis management
When it comes to social media and reputation management, having a public relations (PR) specialist who can take care of negative reviews and feedback is key. Social media crisis management services are also helpful to your client if they’ve experienced a large PR crisis either online or offline.
What you need to know
Understanding how to speak to audiences and individuals in times of stress is important when you’re providing crisis management. Consider adding this to your social media management services list if you or another member of your team is trained in PR and communications.
15. Social media training and workshops
Sometimes your clients might want to feel self-sufficient when it comes to social media but they feel unsure of how to effectively care for their profiles on their own. As a social media management expert, you can provide your clients with hands-on social media training that gives them the tools they need to manage their own profiles with little to no help from external marketing teams.
What you need to know
A good social media workshop can run anywhere from a few hours to several days. Before you add workshops and training to your social media management services list, take time to carefully plan and rehearse your training to make sure you’ve got enough material and confidence to make it worth your client’s investment.
16. Social media account audits
Sometimes improving social media success simply takes the advice of an impartial third party and for clients who aren’t achieving the engagement or reach they’d like, a social media audit is often the solution. Audits help businesses understand how they can optimize their profiles for their target audiences and improve their posting strategy.
What you need to know
A social media audit can be time-consuming—especially when multiple platforms are involved. In many cases, audits can take several hours to a full day to complete. Allocate your time and/or the time of a member of your team accordingly.
17. Employee advocacy programs
Employee advocacy programs are similar to influencer marketing programs; however in this case, your clients’ employees are marketing on their behalf. This adds credibility to the brand and helps broaden its overall reach online.
What you need to know
Employee advocacy programs are ongoing projects that require you to provide several services. That includes employee social media training or account management, content creation, and analytics, so before you add this to your social media management services list, make sure you have the time and resources to allocate to it.
18. Social media integration with other marketing channels
Marketing goes beyond social media for most brands. While some rely on a website and social media channels alone, others incorporate pay-per-click advertising, traditional marketing, or even guest-blogging as other means of spreading the word about their brand. Ensuring that marketing across all channels via social media integration is a great way to improve brand recognition among consumers.
What you need to know
The scope of this project will depend on the size of the company and the various marketing channels they use. It also depends on how cohesive their branding is to begin with. Before you get started or provide a quote, do a quick analysis to determine whether you have the time and budget to take the project on.
19. Geotargeting and local marketing
Businesses with a physical location often prefer marketing to a local audience, and that’s where geotargeting comes in. It consists of developing a social media strategy to attract the attention of local shoppers and consumers through the use of hashtags, keywords, paid ads and local brand or influencer collaborations.
What you need to know
Geotargeting can look different for every business. While for some it might mean advertising to a local target audience, others might see it as the use of locally-trending hashtags or location tagging on platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Discuss your clients goals and budget with them before developing a local marketing strategy.
20. Social media trend analysis
Trends come and go, especially online. Staying on top of social media trends and viral sensations can feel impossible to a small or midsize business owner with a ton of things to get done in their average day. Help improve client satisfaction by offering social media trend analysis on your social media marketing services list and ensure your clients’ posts are always hitting the top of their audience’s pages.
What you need to know
Social media trends change by the hour and depending on the needs of your client, trend analysis can take anywhere from a few hours each month to a few hours each day. Discuss how often they want to focus on trending hashtags or memes and work trend analysis into your schedule at intervals that make sense for both of you.
Frequently asked questions
What is the average cost of social media management services?
Social media management services pricing depends on what services you’re offering, the scope of the project, and rates offered by local competitors. That said, the average cost of full-service social media management is a little over $12,000 (Sprout Social).
How do I choose the right social media management services to offer my clients?
Consider the niches or industries you serve most often and what their typical needs look like. If needed, ask your clients what they’d be most likely to entrust you with.
