social media channels

What Does It Mean to Be a Social Media Strategist?

Data from Statista shows that in 2021, nearly 4.3 billion people used social media. That number is projected to increase to almost six billion by 2027!

With easy access to so many people, it’s unsurprising why social media content is a necessary component of anyone’s digital marketing strategy. So much so that now, plenty of people work as social media strategists.

But what does it mean to be a social media strategist? Read on to learn more about this position and how a strategist can help your business with its social media marketing.

What Is a Social Media Strategist? 

A social media strategist designs campaigns over various social media channels to achieve your company’s goals. Their role focuses on the “big picture.”

Simply put, a social media strategist comes up with a strategy for your social media campaigns and hands it off to a social media manager to implement it.

While a social media strategist may help manage the day-to-day activities and help drive engagement, their most important role is to build brand awareness. In addition, they focus on bridging the gap between offline and online activities.

A social media strategist will be able to handle the following:

  • Plan and schedule content
  • Collaborate with other team members, such as graphic designers, copywriters, and content creators, to create marketing campaigns
  • Measure campaigns’ performance
  • Analyze how other channels such as search engine optimization (SEO), email, and PPC complement and interact with your social media campaigns
  • Monitor business mentions
  • Analyze competitors’ social media campaigns

If you have a social media team, the social media strategist is the backbone of that team.

What’s the Difference Between a Social Media Strategist and Social Media Manager? 

Now that we’ve answered the question, “What is a social media strategist?” you may wonder how the role is different from a social media manager. While many use the two job titles interchangeably, these creative services have some crucial distinctions.

Social media managers focus mainly on the day-to-day activities of social media. Generally speaking, a social media manager helps to implement the strategy given by the strategist by managing a team of social media specialists.

Further, social media managers are usually only thinking about executing one campaign at a time, and their focus is on the execution of the campaign.

Some of their duties include:

  • Content creation (focusing on high-quality content)
  • Engaging with customers on different social media accounts, such as

    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Linkedin
    • TikTok

  • Identifying customer trends
  • Planning and implementing digital campaigns

Some social media managers will analyze engagement and web traffic metrics to help build online communities, but this is not a requirement. Strategists tend to have more skills when it comes to analyzing statistics.

Conversely, while social media strategists may also aid in daily activities related to social media, they do much more. Strategists think about the long-term goals of the company. They need to do research and create more comprehensive marketing campaigns and strategies.

However, the required skill set for both industry professionals is quite similar. They usually need the following:

  • Analytical skills
  • Communication skills
  • Copywriting skills
  • Management skills
  • Multitasking skills
  • Some graphic design skills
  • Time-management skills

Although their roles differ, managers and strategists work together to increase your business’s online presence and help achieve its goals.

What Does a Social Media Strategist Do? 

We could give you a long list of responsibilities for a social media strategist. Instead, we’ll cover what we believe to be the three most important responsibilities of any social media strategist.

Develop, Implement, & Manage Social Media Plans

A social media strategist must identify the following:

  • Potential customer demographics
  • Where the target audience engages on social media
  • How they communicate
  • What makes them tick

With this information, they can analyze social media trends and develop a social media strategy. Once fully developed, social media specialists will implement and manage it through various social media posts.

They may work with a social media manager during the implementation stage.

Define the Most Important Social Media KPIs

With the social media campaigns in place, your strategist will then track the results. Social media analytics is instrumental to the success of your campaigns and offers powerful insights. Of course, your strategist needs to be well-versed in the basic metrics, such as

  • Clicks
  • Comments
  • Likes
  • Shares

But they may also focus on even more important KPIs, like:

  • Brand mentions
  • Engagement
  • Followers
  • Impressions/views
  • Leads
  • Email signups
  • Sales
  • Website traffic

Your strategist will use these KPIs to alter the digital marketing strategy when necessary for the best results.

Build an Online Community on Social Media 

Although daily engagement is essential for a social media strategist, what matters more is building a community and cultivating influence.

Your strategist will use different tools, like storytelling, humor, and polls, to create a following of responsive and loyal customers. They will also guide your business in connecting with its target audience so that the customer relationship can go beyond sales and leads.

Do You Need a Social Media Strategist?

To know if you need to hire a social media strategist, look at who is already on your team.

A strategist is an excellent idea if you need someone to help with your big picture and create an overarching social media strategy. But if you only need someone to help with content creation, posting, and engaging with customers, you may be better off with a social media manager.

Additionally, if your current social media strategy isn’t getting the ROI you expected, a strategist can help assess why. Then, they can create a plan to reach your desired targets.

If you feel completely lost when it comes to anything social media-related, then a strategist can definitely help you.

Social Media Strategist Salary: Pricing to Expect

A strategist isn’t free, so you’ll need to add their fee to your social media marketing costs. According to Indeed.com, the average salary for a full-time social media strategist is around $52,000 per year. This is if you hire someone to join your in-house team.

However, you can also employ a strategist on a project basis. The strategist can deliver a strategy that is ready to implement. Prices will vary depending on the scope of the project and your strategist’s experience.

Grow Your Business With the Right Strategy

Growing your business’s online presence through various social media platforms is necessary to build a loyal customer base and reach your goals. Bringing a social media strategist on board can expedite achieving those goals. Want to learn more about our digital marketing services at EraserFarm? Reach out, and let’s have a chat!

by James Rosene

What are Creative Services | Your Guide to Creative Services

PR Newswire reports that the creative agency market will have an incremental spend of more than $320 billion between 2021 and 2026. The increased spending for creative services proves that businesses need fresh ideas to keep their customers interested and engaged.

But what are creative services exactly?

Creative services are basically creativity for hire - like writing, design, and production - that give your business some oomph. They handle the creative messaging that lets the world know your business exists. You can tap into these services at design studios, advertising agencies, and branding agencies. Creative agencies play a vital role in helping businesses stand out in their market and increase profits. So why should your business consider hiring one? Let’s see what makes them worth your while!

What Services Does A Creative Agency Offer? 

A creative agency provides marketing initiatives and creative solutions to help businesses improve their marketing, ad presence, and brand identity. They can help your business with any creative strategy, work, or promotion. This includes:

  • Advertising, brand, content, marketing, or social media strategy
  • Measurement and analysis
  • Content creation
  • Communication services such as media buys, paid placement, sponsored content, influencer marketing, and PR

You’ll find the following positions in a creative services company:

  • Account manager
  • Art director
  • Brand and content strategist
  • Copywriter
  • Creative director
  • Campaign director
  • Editor
  • Graphic designer
  • Producer
  • Videographer
  • Web designer or developer

How a full-service creative agency provides its services can vary from company to company. For example, some creative agencies work within a specific industry, such as plumbing or HVAC. Other agencies may only work in-house for a large corporation. At EraserFarm, we’ve worked with many clients in diverse industries, such as food and beverage, medical, and nonprofit sectors to invigorate the brand voice and get messaging out there to be seen and heard. We love showcasing what our teams have created - take a look at  our creative work to see some of our best creative projects to date. Creative agencies can offer an extensive range of services, but we’ll focus on four of the most common services available below. 

Advertising Services

Most businesses don’t have the knowledge or bandwidth to create and execute a successful advertising campaign. They also often know what they want to say, but don’t know how to say it. Thus, a creative agency will generate advertising ideation based on market research to understand the target audience and oversee the execution of the campaign. And they’ll do it in a way that sounds like your authentic brand. Depending on the campaign, the agency may need to hire out some of the services. For instance, the designers at a creative agency can create a billboard, but they may need to hire another company to print and hang it.

Consulting Services

You can hire a creative agency to consult with your business on a variety of topics. Some common examples include:

  • New products or services
  • How to lower marketing overhead
  • New markets and demographics to target

If you require consulting services for many aspects of your business, a full-service agency in your area is your best bet.

Design Services

If your business needs to revamp its image or create new promotional materials, a creative agency can help. Whether you need a new logo, design templates, or even new signage, you’ll want the design expertise of a creative or design agency.

Digital Services

Digital marketing has increased global touchpoints, but IT demands can be intimidating unless you have experience in the field.  With the growing importance of technology, many creative agencies now offer expert digital services. Using digital services can create an entirely new user experience. Even making technical advances to your website or app can go a long way with new and returning customers. Digital offerings can also give your customer an immediate answer or pathway to a solution for those with an urgent need, or even entertain them. 

What’s the Difference Between a Creative Agency & Other Agencies? 

A creative services company is an umbrella term that can include other agencies. Different agencies you may be familiar with include:

  • Ad agencies
  • Design agencies
  • Digital agencies
  • PR agencies
  • SEO agencies
  • Social media agencies

While these agencies have a specialized focus, a creative agency usually encompasses more than one of these services. For instance, when a business works with a digital agency, they are working with a company that focuses on a specific digital space instead of a company that has a more diverse list of services.

How Can a Creative Services Company Help Your Business? 

There are many ways creative services can help grow your business. Below we highlight the top five benefits to consider.

Brand Strategy & Identity

Your brand identity drives every aspect of your business, such as

  • Your tone
  • The design of your website and business cards
  • How employees speak to consumers
  • Your pitch to prospective clients

A creative agency can help you craft a brand identity that aligns with your target audience. Then they will create a brand strategy that is the driving force behind your business. This includes everything from copywriting and graphic design to brand standards and competitive analysis.Having a polished brand identity and strategy can help make your business recognizable and memorable.

Brand Engagement

After implementing your brand strategy, a creative agency can help you analyze how well customers respond to it. Examining and interpreting data is crucial in driving brand engagement.Your business can use the data to take actionable steps toward increasing customer engagement.

Video Marketing

Video marketing often helps improve a business’s success on social media and search results. Data shows that video content generates leads and enhances engagement. Although anyone can do their own video production, having the professionals of a creative agency handle your production is best. They can take care of the strategy, scriptwriting, post-production, and everything in between. This will give your video marketing what’s called “high production value,” so that your messaging shines through and gets your customers interested in what you have to offer.

Social Media

Social media marketing may seem easy to handle in-house, but realistically, building a strong social media presence takes a lot of time and effort. When you join forces with a creative agency, you don’t have to worry about spending hours figuring out which platforms to join or what content to create. Instead, a creative agency can easily help your business develop a winning social media strategy.

Digital Marketing

The world of digital marketing is admittedly overwhelming, making it difficult to know where to spend your ad dollars. However, a creative agency can use data to understand where your customers are on the internet and how to reach them best.

Should you invest in SEO, content marketing, or PPC marketing? The professionals at a creative agency will be able to tell you, and they’ll craft a plan to maximize that investment.

Get Started With Creative Services in Tampa

At EraserFarm, we offer a personalized, boutique creative agency experience. Want to create brand loyalists? We know how to do it. Need help with an overall marketing strategy? We got you! Our agency is small - on purpose. Our team works closely with each client to create tailored marketing and creative solutions that build an emotional connection with your consumer. 

We’d love to have a chat. Reach out to us today to book in, and find out how we can help grow your business.

by James Rosene