As agencies assist marketers with managing social media programs, it is becoming even more important for marketers to embrace social media for their own self-promotion.
Brooklyn, N.Y.-based digital agency HUGE counts more than 16,000 Twitter followers. Sam Weston, director of communications at HUGE, says most clients aren’t doing official research on their agencies’ social media pages, but they may take a peek. “Social is something you talk about in the new business process,” he says.
One of the points that HUGE pushes with clients is that social media pages need to be brand consistent, managed and maintained, and they take the same approach at home. While the agency has offices around the world, for now, Weston manages the Twitter account in the New York office.
“Why fragment your audience?,” Weston says. “I would rather have one account that has good content from all of our offices. If you have too many, you run the risk of people getting busy and abandoning the channel. You don’t want clients to see that.”
HUGE’s copy team circulates news stories about design, marketing and technology and Weston picks the best ones, which he then retweets throughout the day. He also retweets interesting things they see from others.
The agency uses Facebook as a way to distribute content internally in lieu of email. While it has served as more of an internal channel, Weston says, they have plans to evolve it and make it more public like the agency’s Twitter page. “It is a natural channel to share what people are writing about us and things we have done,” Weston says.
Google+, another channel to distribute content, is a great way to increase search results, he says. And Weston says even though not a lot of people are using the social network, it is a place to get noticed. “Being where competitors aren’t is a good thing,” he says. “And if you want to talk to Google employees or potentially have Google promote your work, it’s a good place to be.”
The agency also has a presence on LinkedIn. “It is great now that people can follow your company,” Weston says. “Everyone is on LinkedIn, and they are all following the companies they want to work for.”
Weston says he sees potential for agencies to grow this channel. “Anyone who is following you on LinkedIn is following you [for] a reason,” he says. “It is easy to tailor content for that audience and grow traffic.”
HUGE has yet to use Pinterest, but the agency is not new to image based social networks. It had a major presence on Flickr, and the agency’s global creative director, Joe Stewart, has an active Instagram account that clients and employees follow.
HUGE has also used social media to create offline events. “We are looking to build community in real ways, so we started building events and meet-up groups where people can go to HUGE offices in New York and L.A. to meet and talk in person,” Weston says.
