The Best of the Best: Social Media Marketing Agencies for Local Businesses

The last thing you want is to hire a social media agency that’s all smoke and no fire. Unfortunately, all too often, local businesses find themselves stuck in multi-month contracts with social media agencies that promise more followers, higher engagement, and an out-of-the-box social media marketing strategy…but never deliver results.  

Instead, they get bland posts, no strategic approach, use of irrelevant hashtags, and poor client support.

If you want to see your business thrive on social media, never settle for mediocre social media help. That’s just throwing away money.

Finding the right social media agency requires hours of effort. To save you time, we’ve done the research for you. Grab a coffee (or your favorite drink) and let’s find the right social media agency for your business.  

How Can Social Media Help Local Businesses?

You’ve probably seen or heard stories of local businesses killing it on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or another social channel. You probably want to achieve similar results—and quickly. 

But here’s the thing—you won’t achieve ground-breaking results instantly. Social media marketing takes time. Expecting a significant increase in sales and an exponential spike in your follower count, especially in the initial stages will do more harm than good. 

If the results don’t meet your expectations right away, you may think that promoting on social media was a big waste of your time and money and decide to stop your efforts completely. 

To avoid giving up before you reach the finish line, set realistic expectations. And try not to tie your social media marketing efforts solely to profitability and vanity metrics. Think of the bigger picture. 

Social media marketing helps local businesses:

1. 1. Increase brand awareness and build credibility. The more you put your business in front of your audience, the more likely they’re to recognize and trust you.
   2. Multiply content marketing efforts. You can use social media to promote other forms of content like blog posts, eBooks, webinars, etc.

• Drive website traffic. Engaging content can convince people to visit your website and learn more.  

1. Build a community. Six out of ten Americans participate in community groups. People want to be a part of communities that share their interests. 
2. Keep existing customers engaged. Sharing meaningful information, asking questions, running polls, and hosting live videos are all great ways to connect with the people who already buy from you. 
3. Deliver superior customer service. Social media makes it easy to communicate with customers via comments and DMs.

If your business isn’t on social, you’re missing out on all the virtual high-fives from your prospects and customers. 

How Social Media Helps Businesses—A Real Life Example

Matt Buchanan, the Co-Founder of Service Direct, published an article on how small businesses can use TikTok to increase their revenue. Throughout the piece, Matt shared actionable insights along with an inspiring example of a Chicago-based business that used TikTok to drive thousands of people to their website.

Business: Buccal Fat Removal Chicago

Social Media Platforms Leveraged:

• TikTok – 270,000+ followers
• Instagram – 5,000+ followers
• Facebook – 1,000+ followers
• YouTube – 500+ subscribers

According to Matt, Buccal Fat Removal Chicago drove 1,017 users to their website via TikTok and 695 users via Instagram in November 2021. In December 2021, the number stood at 2,796 for TikTok and 632 for Instagram. 

By implementing the right strategies and with consistency, you can achieve similar results.

3 Tips for Hiring the Right Social Media Marketing Agency for Your Business

Hiring a reliable and results-driven social media agency can help you dominate your socials while saving you time, effort, and money. The following tips will help you feel confident in your search for a social media marketing agency. 

1. Set realistic goals.

So many small businesses have been there—they see one of their competitors drive hundreds of leads from social media, so they decide to tap into the power of social for their own business.  

They spend countless hours creating and optimizing their profiles, curating on-brand posts, and stressing about vanity metrics. They hope for immediate results, but that doesn’t happen.  

They become frustrated and start to feel like social media is all-hype and not worth the time and effort. So they give up. 

What many businesses fail to realize is that social media isn’t a sprint; it’s a marathon.

Having unrealistic expectations—like thinking all of your posts will go viral or believing you’ll gain thousands of followers overnight— will do more harm than good. 

Instead, Set SMART goals. A few examples of SMART goals are:

• Increase website traffic from social by 10% over the next quarter by posting 3 times per week and using relevant hashtags. 
• Increase sales from social media by 5% over the next quarter by promoting special offers and discounts via targeted advertising. 
• Increase user-generated content by 25% month over month by hosting a contest and offering incentives for customers who post about your business. 
• Increase followers by 15% quarterly by consistently posting engaging content and using relevant hashtags. 
• Increase positive reviews on social media by 25% month over month by regularly asking for and responding to customer feedback.

2. Do your research. 

How do you avoid hiring an all-talk and no-game social media marketing company? The answer is simple—put in the time to research social media agencies with proven track records. 

As you prepare a list of social media marketing companies to contact, don’t just write down the names of the first few businesses that show up on Google. Dive deeper:

• • Head over to their social profiles and make sure they themselves have a good social media presence. 
  • Dig into their portfolios to look at the results they’ve helped their past clients achieve.
  • Prioritize working with an agency that holds expertise in your industry and has worked with businesses like yours in the past.  

3. Ask the right questions.

Once you’ve compiled a list of agencies to reach out to, it’s time to get into the nitty-gritty details. Never go with the first agency you find. Instead, interview a few different agencies to see which one feels like the best fit for your needs. 

Here are a few social media marketing agency interview questions you might consider asking: 

1. How do you make sure that your social media marketing strategies align with your clients’ business goals and objectives?
2. Do you specialize in our industry? 
3. Which social media channels do you specialize in? 
4. How do you deal with crisis management on social media? Do you use social media listening tools like Sprout Social or Hootsuite? 
5. How do you address negative comments?
6. What does your creative process look like? Can you share examples of posts that your team created?
7. Does your team have experience following a style guide? 
8. Can you share your biggest wins and failures? 
9. Do you use user-generated content? How do you work with influencers to promote your clients’ brands on social media?
10. This is a partnership—what will you need from us? 
11.  What can we expect from you every month? Do you offer monthly reporting or is it on a quarterly basis?

Ask questions relevant to your goals and brand. In addition to the questions above, we also recommend framing a few industry-specific ones of your own to understand how well they know your industry. 

The Top 4 Social Media Marketing Agencies that Deliver Actual Results

Now that you know how to hire the right social media marketing agency, here’s a list of four agencies that know how to get results. 

1. Thrive

Founded in 2005, Thrive is a full-service internet marketing agency that offers a wide range of data-driven marketing services—from social media marketing and advertising to web design to SEO and more. From startups to Fortune 500 companies, Thrive works with thousands of businesses of different sizes and industries globally. 

Here’s what their customers say about them:

Thrive has put together dozens of social media case studies. Click here to read them.

2. Ignite Visibility

Launched in 2013, Ignite Visibility offers expert-led digital marketing services to businesses of all sizes and across different sectors. These services include SEO, international search marketing, PPC, local search marketing, social media management, email marketing, and more.  

Here’s what their customers say about them:

In addition, they have a lot of verified case studies. You can find them here. 

3. Firebelly

Firebelly is another popular and performance-oriented social media marketing agency offering a suite of social media marketing services like audits, management, advertising, and influencer marketing. Alongside this, they offer additional social media marketing services (which they refer to as studio services) such as graphic design, photography, and videography. Their core expertise lies in the food and beverage industry.

Here’s what their customers say about them:

Want to see their work? Here’s one of their most interesting case studies. 

4. Lyfe Marketing

Founded in 2011, Lyfe Marketing’s primary goal is to help small businesses grow. From social media marketing to email marketing to video animation, Lyfe Marketing offers a full suite of data-driven digital marketing services. 

Here’s what their customers say about them: 

You can check out their social media case studies here. 

Ready to Hire a Social Media Marketing Agency?

Hiring a social media agency can help you grow your online presence and reach a wider audience. Whether you’re looking to hire an agency just for studio services like graphic design or videography or for end-to-end social media marketing, finding the right fit makes all the difference.

On the other hand, if you’re planning to build an in-house team or going at it all by yourself, make sure to check out our guide, Social Media Marketing for Local Businesses.