The first step to success; be a sponge.
Whenever you kick off a project it’s critical to get your client’s history and background – understand their successes and failures. If you’re in the early stages of pitching a new client, use your listening ears on and keep track of the opportunities your team can tackle early on in the relationship. Learn everything you possibly can about that client, their company, and their product.
Collect Information
With new clients, you likely set up a kick off meeting which often includes a brain dump. Clients hand over access to files and reports, putting the onus on your team to sift through and figure out what happened – what worked – and what didn’t.
As you know, doing thorough research is only a part of getting your new relationship off on the right foot, but we know how to make it a bit easier; by tapping into their social media channels.
When it comes to social media, you can skip a lot of the hassle by going straight to the source. Save the time with clients and dive into the data yourself with a social media audit. After you complete the audit outlined in this guide, go back to your client to add color or fill in any gaps. You’ll save time AND impress your client with your insight.
Identify Competitors to Set Benchmarks
We define benchmarking as an evaluation by comparison. By using a series of data points from direct competitors or brands that speak to the same audience, we can compare the performance of social channels.
It establishes a good sense of what is realistically possible as well as what has proven successful with a relevant audience. Secondly, a social audit gives you insight into the types of marketing campaigns their competitors have invested in. Armed with this information, you can begin crafting a new strategy for your potential client and understand what your team is up against.
Understand Their Audience
Take the time to understand the landscape’s audience collectively, and then also by social channel. One competitor may excel on one channel, but have a very little audience on another.
By analyzing the competition’s audience, you’ll be able to use this data to determine how well each is performing as you move through the remaining benchmarks.
Start by analyzing your client’s overall social audience and how it breaks down across channels. Then repeat for each competitor. Do they align?
Uncover Impactful and Engaging Content
Engagement Metrics – These are the numbers that matter. Social media is not a billboard. Social media is about engagement; sharing, conversing and amplifying. Instagram and Facebook both rely on algorithms that show the audience the content they’ll engage with. Twitter uses algorithms to create the “In case you missed it” section to push content that likely matters to the audience.
When you analyze the content of those engaging posts you may notice the types of activities that the landscape is investing in. The next step is to look deeper into the individual brands and what they’re promoting on their social channels. Savvy brands use social media to support broader initiatives.
The following are activities to look for when auditing the landscape:
- Partnered Events Campaigns
- Giveaways and gifts
- Influencer/advocates
- Studies/surveys
- Helpful guides/cheat sheets
Identifying Strategic Opportunities
No two audits are the same, just as really no two clients are either. When you dive into the social data, there’s often a surprise or two. There may be obvious tactical pieces your client has been missing, like hashtags or shifting the time and days of postings. But there is likely several strategy opportunities you’ll uncover as well.
A competitive audit not only allows you to imitate the best, it’s also a way to spot the gaps. It takes a savvy marketer and strategist to see those opportunities, which I’m confident you’ll be able to do.Take the data you’ve gathered in your audit and lay it all out. Look for where your client is winning, where competitors are succeeding, as well as where there is no one present.
Turn this data into a meaningful strategy and conversation with your client. They’ll be delighted with the insight and more importantly your plan to put them out in front of the pack.
Marketing agencies choose Rival IQ to help build trust and win business
Using Rival IQ, marketing agencies of all specialties gain powerful competitive social metrics, insights, and analytics, with reports that help them present recommendations to clients in a clear and concise way.
“Rival IQ helps us understand what is happening in our clients’ unique competitive landscape and benchmark their social performance so we can better understand their space and advise how they can grow, and achieve better engagement,” said Katee Duarte, co-founder of Duarte Group Inc.. “Rival IQ’s social marketing analytics simplify massive amounts of data so we can quickly identify valuable social marketing opportunities, and help our team become better, more informed strategic marketers.”
Armed with competitive and relative data, marketing agencies are better equipped and informed about unique client challenges, and have an edge in tailoring the social creation and strategic process for every client.
“We work on behalf of companies and causes where public opinion matters, like those in the energy industry, and social media is a key component in gauging public temperature and ensuring their marketing success,” said Chris Conard, director of content strategy at Bravo Group. “Rival IQ gives us an edge in efficiency and scope when understanding a client’s digital landscape. More importantly, the data and reporting structure enable us to have more transparency and instill trust with our clients – it’s easier for the client see exactly how content is performing.”
Features like Facebook Ads Analytics save agencies and their client’s money and time with notifications of underperforming and top-performing ad sets.
We believe in harnessing the power of integrated communications strategies for successful public relations,” said Shannon Woods, account executive at LANE, a Finn Partners Company. “Rival IQ allows us to tie social marketing efforts directly to media wins by monitoring metrics like engagement rate, follower growth, and top-performing content. Their easy-to-digest results enable us to spend less time compiling metrics and more time analyzing the data and identifying opportunities to set our clients apart in their market.”
Are you ready to expedite your discovery process? Download your free guide, Drive Client Value through Social Media Audits here.
