What Makes Social Media Management Clients Stick

Landing a new client is exciting! But, that looming thought of, how do I keep them engaged? That's a whole different ball game.

We hear you social media managers! One of the biggest challenges we all face is client retention. When asked what our favorite part about social media management is, we always say working with clients! When asked what the most challenging part about social media management is....again...working with clients. Just because this is a challenge, doesn't mean that it can be a good one, though!

We just hit our 6th year in business back in October and over these six years, we can proudly say that we've had some clients stick with us since the start! Of course, with that, we've also had a lot of learning experiences from clients that didn't. And, that's why we want to share what our advice is from all the good and bad experiences that have led to clients sticking...and not sticking to help better your process, just as we have continuously done over the years. Buckle up, SMMs and listen to the top things we've learn about making clients stick!

Expectations

From the very first discovery call, ask the hard questions. Of course, we don't love talking about budgets and saying no to things — not one social media manager probably does. However, forcing ourselves to ask those questions from the beginning is important because that will help you set expectations and qualify leads from the start. Ask about their budget, current strategies, their team structure, their working styles. These are all things that will help you determine if they will be a good partnership for you! On the other side of that, don't be afraid to say no. If you genuinely don't want to offer that service, say no!

Make It Easy: Processes + Organization

Handing over a department of your business is never easy. Being an agency or business owner yourself, think about when you outsource things — what leads to the most stress for you? For me, it always comes to down to if the person/team is organized and has processes that they follow that make not only the transition but the ongoing relationship work efficiently. The last thing you want to do is feel like you can't be trusted and come off unorganized. We always stand by having set processes and leaning on our systems and tools to create a smooth workflow for clients. This has been years in the making, and is always improving, but here are the top things you should think about:

Processes:

  1. Leads Management / Discovery

  2. Onboarding

  3. Ongoing Management

  4. Offboarding

Getting Organized:

  1. Have a hub

  2. Keep alllll the client's information in one spot to stay organized. We like to use a project management tool (Asana), but this could also be something like Google Drive, to make it simple.

  3. Have one streamlined place for communication

  4. We invite all our clients into a Slack channel where they can ask anything that they need, and we will get back to them during our office hours. This eliminates the email vs text, client phone calls after hours, and confusion over where to reach out and gives them a streamlined place to reach us.

  5. Recurring meetings

  6. Talking face-to-face or screen-to-screen rather is super helpful when it comes to checking in, building relationships, and getting on the same page!

Be Adaptive

Leave room for feedback and be adaptive with your clients. Sometimes you'll run into clients with tough schedules, specific requests, or tech challenges. Knowing when to be adaptive is an important skill to learn. A major disclaimer on this point, remember that you have to also draw a line between being adaptive and letting them walk all over you!

Build Relationships

After all, these are people you have to work closely with! Make it positive for both you and your clients by taking the time to build a solid professional relationship. We love to go the extra mile in any way we can! In our onboarding questionnaire, we ask for their business birthday/founder birthday, and what their favorite local spot is. We use this to send cards for milestones and even gift cards around the holidays to that very local spot. Build rapport in meetings, remain respectful in conversations, choose the in-person meeting when you can, be a customer or a fan of their business — find the small ways to get to know your clients on a personal level.

Transparency

Again, back to those hard convos and questions! Sometimes, there are unavoidable conversations we need to have with clients, and that's where transparency is key. We are all human and mistakes are made, if when that happens, there's no shame in being honest! If a post didn't go as well as you'd like, or you didn't hit that goal for the month, hiding behind that won't help build that trust and relationship. Take the time to assess whatever situation you are experiencing and learn about what occurred, find an action plan to solve it, and relay that to the client. They will want to be informed and see that you are making an effort to fix it moving forward.

Present Results

At the end of the day, the results will be an essential decision when it comes down to whether your clients leave or stay. Keep clients in the loop on what results you are generating, and how this is helpful to their business. Be confident when presenting and focus on the ROI you bring to the table with your services!

One last disclaimer, clients do leave in this industry. We still experience it, it's normal, and it sucks! Sometimes it's 100% nothing that we did, and has everything to do with changes in their brand, finances, or mission, that we can't prevent or account for. So, if you lose a client but you feel like you checked all the boxes of what you could do — don't overthink it! All you can do is move forward on focus on your current client roster and new clients that are coming!

Cheers to 2025, the year of happy clients and a happy YOU!

Previous
Previous

How To Level Up Your Video Content in 2025

Next
Next

Why You Need To Have Fun With Your Marketing