The social media space has seen unprecedented growth in recent times. The US alone accounts for a mind-boggling 302 million+ social media users with a social networking penetration rate of more than 91 percent.
For marketers, this signifies exciting opportunities to offer tailored services that positively impact the brand. Once you know the different types of social media marketing (SMM) services, you can easily identify and offer those services that align with your expertise.
So, whether you’re a seasoned marketer or a newcomer eager to establish your venture, this roadmap includes insights and tips to help take your social media marketing agency (SMMA) business to the next level.
TL;DR Summary of Services
Want to explore the different types of SMMA services and their profit potential? Here’s a roundup to guide you through the exciting possibilities!
- Low overheads and mass social media usage enhance profitability in SMMA services.
- Base your SMMA pricing on value, service scope, production costs, and desired margins.
- Among the top trends, Artificial Intelligence and Hyper-personalized outreach will drive SMMA services in the future.
Popular types of SMMA services include:
- Social media platform management
- Influencer marketing
- Content creation
- Content marketing
- Community management
- Platform audits, consulting & strategy sessions
- Social media advertising
- Lead generation
- Short-form content
- Social media eCommerce
To know the fine points, read on!
Is SMMA Profitable?
When venturing into entrepreneurial space such as SMMA services, several factors influence the profitability of your SMMA business.
Here are some of the top few:
- Low overheads: Social media marketing often requires minimal physical resources, especially in the initial stages. You’re good to go with a computer and a good internet connection while saving on rent and related costs.
- Social media growth: Experienced marketers in high-demand social media work can command premium rates, boosting their profits. The following findings from Statista highlight the demand for SMMA services. In 2023, in the U.S. alone:
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- Social media ad spending touched 72.3 billion U.S. dollars and is expected to cross 80 billion dollars by 2026.
- Social media budgets were among the top three digital channels, accounting for around 17 percent of the digital media budget pie.
- Niche-oriented: SMMA businesses focus on delivering specific services within a niche, such as restaurants. Leveraging contractors and minimal automation allows you to achieve higher profit margins than traditional agencies.
Additionally, with expertise in a particular niche, you can charge a premium for SMMA services.
- Small business-friendly: As SMM agencies are nimbler, they can offer smaller clients affordable social media agency services. Recent findings that 70% of small businesses use social media in their marketing indicate immense scope for profitability.
- Consistency: The demand for managed social media services is increasing. Consequently, the SMMA business model is a feasible long-term business model with referrals further facilitating consistent revenue.
Having said that, your prior digital marketing expertise can expedite profitability compared to if you’re starting fresh in the SMM industry.
Fortunately, if you’re newly stepping into SMMA services, you can benefit from coaching mentorship programs provided by Prospecting On Demand™. Tailored for beginners and high-level entrepreneurs, we enable digital marketing agency owners to scale their agencies to seven-figure MRRs and beyond.
How to Price SMMA Services
You could use this simple step-by-step guide to determine optimal pricing for your social media marketing services:
- Identify your costs and desired margins: SMMA services typically comprise fixed and variable costs. After estimating these costs, decide on a profit margin.
To illustrate, if your costs are $1,000 per month and you want a 50% profit margin, you’ll need to target revenues of $2,000.
- Understand your impact: Assess your impact on client success—be it brand visibility, lead generation, or enhanced engagement. Understanding concrete outcomes of your service supports justifying a higher price.
- Select a suitable pricing model: Hourly charges, retainer fees, flat fees, and performance-based fees are standard pricing models SMM agencies use. Aim to select a pricing model by assessing which of the following advantages you’re looking for:
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- Flat fees, while easy to set, lack scalability with changing work scopes.
- For stable income, the retainer model is ideal.
- Opt for performance-based pricing if seeking a collaborative approach. Linking payments to outcomes pushes you to deliver consistent, impactful results.
In a nutshell, when it comes to pricing, match the price with the value you provide customers, the scope of service, production costs, and your desired margins.
Perhaps you’d like to discover Prospecting On Demand™ tools and systems. Our insightful online programs and training courses have helped many SMMA providers unlock business growth.
Social Media Marketing Services List
Once you’ve decided to provide managed social media services, awareness of the types of SMMA services can help you successfully navigate the landscape.
This section explores the different types of SMMA services you can leverage to elevate your client’s online presence and engage a relevant audience.
1. Social media platform management
Foray into social media marketing services by managing various social media platforms for individuals and businesses.
Along with the leading social media platforms, you could expand your skills to manage niche platforms for clients. Typical tasks included in this type of SMMA service include creating accounts, posting engaging content, and monitoring the performance of these accounts.
2. Influencer marketing
Considering that 69% of consumers trust influencers’ suggestions, influencer marketing has become a popular type of SSMA service. The process involves compensating.
A social media manager’s role includes identifying and engaging with fitting individuals or entities and leveraging their thriving social media following to promote a brand.
3. Content creation
You could create engaging content to grow your clients’ target audience for profitable responses. Content creators offer one or all of the following types of social media content:
- Text: If you’re good at crafting clear, concise captions, thought-provoking posts, and impactful messages, leverage this skill to promote the brand among target audiences.
Persuasive, well-edited text helps attract online audiences and fosters meaningful interactions.
- Graphics: Creating captivating visuals, such as infographics, cover designs, and profile pictures, is crucial in SMM marketing. SMM agencies play an impactful role in engaging audiences by creating compelling visuals customized for social media usage.
- Video: Most of the popular social media platforms, such as YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram, at the core, are image-and-video-based.
You could offer various video content production services in this type of SMMA service, such as photographing customer testimonials and creating reels and short-form videos.
4. Content marketing
You could also offer content marketing, a highly strategic approach to promoting and disseminating content to targeted audiences. When presenting this type of SMMA service, your primary role would be to:
- Identify and leverage the social media platforms most used by your target audience.
- Create detailed client plans and calendars, specifying topics, formats, and posting schedules.
- Align content with each platform’s unique identity.
- Monitor social media outcomes for quantity and quality.
5. Community management
Some agencies offer community management packages. Notably, these types of SMMA services are critically required by more prominent companies with significant social media followers.
The critical role of community management services includes:
- Observing the audience’s discussions and interactions on the platform.
- Addressing customer service issues while ensuring that the group stays active.
- Identifying opportunities for engagement with the brand.
6. Platform audits, consulting & strategy sessions
You could also provide social media platform audit services. The role would require you to study the outcomes achieved on specific platforms, while the insights will enable brands to modify their strategy for enhanced results.
Similarly, you could offer consultancy and strategy sessions to help customers achieve desired social media goals. The sessions could include recommendations for target audiences, selecting the appropriate platforms, content generation, and analytics.
7. Social media advertising
If you have an advertising background, you could use your skills to create and manage social media ads for your clients.
Blend your creativity with media planning skills and dive into crafting ad copy, creating eye-catching visuals, and managing campaigns!
8. Lead generation
As the SMMA space gets more populated, businesses generate leads through social content or emails to their website. However, most are unable to convert leads into customers.
You can step into this space and, using your sales sequences, leverage best practices and processes to drive conversions.
9. Short-form content
Short-form videos like TikTok videos, which are typically under 60 seconds, got the thumbs up from marketers.
This type of SMMA service suits for those with good editing skills. With user-friendly software, you can transform long-form brand content into smaller posts ideal for platforms like Instagram and TikTok.
10. Social media eCommerce
Social commerce enables direct product browsing and purchasing within social media apps. Brands are increasingly seeking integration of eCommerce with social media platforms.
You can offer specialized SMMA services in optimizing brands’ social media profiles for seamless shopping with shoppable posts and easier checkouts.
Key Characteristics of Successful Services
At this checkpoint, we hope you are reasonably aware of the types of SMMA services. Now, let’s take our knowledge up a notch!
Below are some key characteristics that often define successful Social Media Marketing Agency (SMMA) services.
Account and Profile Creation and Branding
Creating social media accounts is simple, but achieving success with profiles requires initial planning. You can add unique value by:
- Creating impactful social media accounts and profiles with a presence on networks where your target audiences have a significant and active presence.
- Optimizing and updating profiles with consistent usernames and essential information.
- Use consistent branding elements across platforms for improved accessibility, engagement, and brand recognition.
Content Creation and Publishing
SMMA businesses play a vital role in creating and sharing engaging content across diverse social media networks. Make the most of your content by:
- Tailoring your messages and multimedia content for specific platforms, ensuring they inform, entertain, and promote seamlessly.
- Adapting to different platforms’ varying dimensions, platform rules, and text formatting.
- Optimize posting schedules. Post a few times a week for brand awareness, daily for lead generation, and 3-5 times per week for follower engagement.
- Using scheduling apps to save time by automating posts.
- Customize multimedia content to match each platform’s operations and requirements.
Analytics and Performance Tracking
Analytics help you measure the success of your social media campaigns and adapt to changing trends and audience preferences. A robust social media analytics approach includes the following:
- Using tools to understand audience interests, demographics, and preferred social media platforms.
- Assessing competitors’ social media campaigns and identifying gaps.
- Implementing software to track trends, hashtags, and audience discussions.
- Monitoring and analyzing key metrics, such as your website traffic, engagement, ROAS, leads, growth, and sales.
Education and Consulting
Switching to social media marketing can take a lot of work for many clients. An SMM agency can help clients navigate the complexities of social media by:
- Offering workshops on dos and don’ts, and unique platform features.
- Creating information kits covering the brand’s social media policy on different platforms, content sharing, competitor handles, and employee usage.
Campaign and Community Management
Notable characteristics of efficient community management include:
- Tactfully responding to complex queries while identifying and nurturing loyalists.
- Providing creators with insights and content feedback and facilitating more relatable and relevant content.
Future Trends in SMMA Services
If you’re into offering SMMA services for the long haul, you must constantly update yourself on future trends. Likewise, assimilating new technologies will be pivotal in ensuring your services remain relevant and effective in the marketplace.
Read up on the following SMMA trends that will likely drive SMMA services:
- Growth for Dynamic SMMAs: Established SMMA businesses will offer comprehensive service packages, fostering stronger client relationships and driving significant revenue growth.
- Video content influence: As the popularity of video content advances further, SMM agencies can leverage this trend. Developing engaging video content for platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok will increase audience attention and brand awareness.
- Role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Augmented Reality (AR): AI will enhance automation further. Automation will be more accessible in content creation, ad management, content scheduling, customer engagement, and other functions.
Platforms like Snapchat now integrate AR for interactive user experiences. SMM agencies will increasingly rely on AR for product showcases, virtual trials, and brand experiences to stay ahead of the competition.
- Hyper-personalized outreach: Leveraging behavioral and transactional data will elevate personalization. Richer customer insights will help SMM agencies tailor content and offer to individual preferences.
- Rise of niche influencers: Influencers will continue influencing social media strategies. However, brands will prioritize highly engaged niche influencers. The shift will facilitate relatable content and boost conversion.
- Voice search and live streaming: Voice search has been gaining traction. SMM agencies will need to prioritize voice search optimization by using conversational keywords and providing concise answers to common questions.
Similarly, as live streaming increases in popularity, SMMA services must leverage this trend to interact with audiences. For instance, live Q&As, feedback sessions, and launches will provide pathways for more meaningful customer interactions.
Conclusion
Here’s our comprehensive guide to the types of SMMA services, their profitability, and pricing structures. Along with these insights on the SMMA business model, be mindful of future trends and emerging technologies to keep your services relevant and effective.
If you are ready to take your SMMA business to the next level, book a free agency assessment with our experts. Our team at Prospecting On Demand™ would be happy to answer all your questions.