Top 10 Benefits of Social Media for Ad Agency New Business

ten benefits of social media for ad agency new business

Social media benefits the bottom line for small to mid-size ad agencies  – new business.

Almost my entire advertising career has been in new business. When I waded into social media, it was from a new business perspective. How best to use to social media to generate new business.

I am a believer, an unapologetic social media enthusiast. Not only is social media having a tremendous impact upon the advertising industry, it greatly impacts ad agency new business. I view it as a positive impact. Almost a new business person’s dream.

To help spread my enthusiasm and enlist principals and those charged with their agency’s new business, I’ve found it necessary to share the “multiplicity” of benefits social media can provide to convince them to make the time to participate.

Below are my top 10 benefits of social media for ad agency new business:

  1. From an agency new business perspective, social media “teaches” ad agencies to do new business the way they should have been doing all along. To be successful with social media you are compelled to lead prospective client engagement with benefits and value rather than agency capabilities and credentials.
  2. Social media is the best branding tool I’ve ever used for agencies. To be able to build awareness, create appeal, generate traffic, you must be able to identify your agency’s target audience more narrowly than ever before. You can’t just be a brand agency, you must take it a step further such as Locomotion Creative has done through Blue Collar Branding.
  3. The personal and professional enrichment provided through social media is worth it all. Social media can provide you with and help you maintain FOCUS. Through that focus you can maintain a ritual to stay up on the latest trends, keep ahead of your clients and provide them with genuine leadership.
  4. Social media greatly improves your communication skills. “You don’t know what you know till you write it down.” My blog has helped me to be a better communicator. Even Twitter helps me to be more concise, exercise my vocabulary and improve my editing skills to write a message with 140 characters or less.
  5. Social media is becoing central hub for all of our advertising and marketing. The rich feedback from audiences is incredible, timely and affordable. The engagement with your prospective client audience will help you to hone your agency’s appeal and create the messaging the best resonates with them.
  6. People want to work with people that they know, like and trust and social media provides the opportunity to build relationships in the most efficient way possible. The ROI from your “time investment” is rich. Posts that I have written  years ago still produce traffic and engagement from prospects.
  7. Combining social with your agency’s niche, your agency’s point of differentiation, can become an appealing and powerful positioning. Holland + Holland advertising, through their blog She-conomy, has been invited to three national pitches and work with Porsche as a result of their differentiating positioning. That had not happened before in their 25 year history.
  8. Social media levels the playing field. Small to mid-size agencies can afford tighten up their positioning, hone their appeal and affordably compete for accounts that were once reserved for only the larger agencies. Social plus your niche can propel your agency to the head of the pack.
  9. Your agency’s market can greatly increase through social media. Prior to using social media for new business, The Russo Group, Lafayette, LA, 94% of their new business came from within their market. Since implementing social media, 94% of their new business has been generated outside their market and extended new business opportunities from coast to coast.
  10. Social media provides small to mid-size agencies their opportunity of a lifetime.  There are no experts in social. Many agencies are trying to figure out how to monetize it. Don’t understand it yet. Aren’t using it for themselves. This is an opportunity for your agency to get ahead of the pack. Your niche plus social can take you to the head of the line.

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photo credit: byzantiumbooks via photopin cc

About Michael Gass

Consultant | Trainer | Author | Speaker

Since 2007, he has been pioneering the use of social media, inbound and content marketing strategies specifically for agency new business.

He is the founder of Fuel Lines Business Development, LLC, a firm which provides business development training and consulting services to advertising, digital, media and PR agencies.

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