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Last year, I had the privilege to conduct a 30-day case study on a potential client; Grace London Stationery. I had been following the account on Instagram for a while and was pretty much obsessed with the aesthetics; everything was millenial pink (with accents of white, gold, and black) with clean lines and modern, yet relatable quotes... I started noticing, though, that the account had some pretty big gaps in posting days. So after some research I reached out:
Hello Louise!
I came across your Instagram page a few weeks back (thank you, Ella Iconic Planners’ Page) and immediately fell in love with your business. Your visual aesthetic and brand messages are so beautiful!!
The only downside is that I wish you posted more often!! Is that because you’re a mom of two young kids and too busy creating the beautiful stationery and doing your actual JOB? (Is it creepy that I guessed that?)
I am a budding social media manager and need to build up a client portfolio and I think your brand would be the perfect business for me to start out. I can help you build up a following and grow a community around your brand because I really believe in and love your product!! But seeing as I don’t have enough experience yet, I’m willing to offer my services for one month in exchange for a testimonial.
What do you think? We can schedule a call if you’d like to talk over the phone about this. Take a look at my site; I’m sure you’ll agree that we can build a beautiful working relationship!
We got to talking and exchanging a number of emails... I explained to her exactly how "social media management" works and how I believe it could help her business. She expressed her concerns about the time difference (she's based in London), budget limits, and ensuring that a newbie can keep posts "on-brand". After in-depth reassurance, a step-by-step plan of action, and a clear list of goals, she handed over the proverbial reigns, and sent over all of the branding standards, image library, usernames and passwords.
From the 16th of the first month to the 17th of the following month, BLF Communications handled all planning, posting, monitoring, engagement, and strategy for Grace London Stationery's Instagram and Facebook Pages- the platforms that would be most beneficial for the business based on the client's target market. Together, we collaborated on each post, caption, hashtag, and engagement strategy. Here's a sample grid of the images we posted to the @GraceLondonStationery Instagram page:
Before I got started, I recorded a number of statistics and analytics and then compared them all to the very end of the trial-period. Here are the results of the case study:
Total Number of Followers Before: 1,306
Total Number of Followers After: 1,401
Total Number of Posts Before: 287
Total Number of Posts After: 320
Average Number of Posts Per Month Before: 9
Number of Posts During Case Study Month: 33
Average Number of Likes Per Post Before: 60
Average Number of Likes During Case Study Month: 88
Average Number of Comments Per Post Before: 7
Average Number of Comments Per Post After: 8
Follower Demographics Before: 91% Women, Age 25-34, Primarily Located in London
Follower Demographics After: 90% Women (meaning an increase in male followers!), Age 25-34, Primarily Located in London
Total Likes and Followers Before: 171
Total Likes and Followers After: 176
Average Reach Per Post Before: 30
Average Reach Per Post During Case Study Month: 51
Average Engagement Rate Per Post Before: 1%
Average Engagement Rate During Case Study Month: 12%
Average Number of Website Clicks per Month: 0.5
Number of Website Clicks During Case Study Month: 3
Audience Demographics Before: 80% Women, Ages 35-44, Primarily Located in London
Audience Demographics After: 81% Women, Ages 35-44, Primarily Located in London
From these results, I would advise Louise to continue on the path and rhythm that we established for continuous and consistent growth. Moving forward, I would also suggest some new tactics such as an investment in targeted, paid advertising to increase reach around the rest of the world, as well as more influencer outreach.
She took some time to reflect on our relationship and the work we did together and wrote one of the most beautiful and glowing testimonials I had ever read:
Katherine has been a joy to work with in managing my social media content. She brought creativity and fresh thinking to a key area of my business, helping to boost sales and reach a wider audience. She understood my brand innately and her curated content was perfectly en-point. She has a great knack for producing meaningful and original posts and helped create higher levels of engagement on Instagram and Facebook.
It has been fantastic to hand over the social media reins to someone who cares about my business as much as I do allowing me to focus on designing. I liked Katherine’s friendly yet professional and sharp approach. She is always responsive, timely, courteous and forward-thinking. Her productivity and process was smooth and very organised so it was easy to rely on Katherine to ensure my social media ran effortlessly.
Ultimately, a social media manager has to be effective, not only in creating pretty content but driving forward a brand story and boosting audience interaction – Katherine is savvy in both areas. She has a keen understanding of the layers of social media and how to implement a beneficial marketing strategy. I will be collaborating with Katherine again and highly recommend BLF Communications for anyone looking to boost their social media platforms effectively.
Louise was an absolute dream client. She was knowledgable, tech-friendly, understanding, flexible, trusting, and open about her opinions, yet always remained professional and respectful. From working with her on Grace London Stationery and from prior experience working with clients in Public Relations, she fulfilled so many of the ideal qualities I look for in a client. The most important one, though, is that she kept me updated on the inner workings of her business: an accurate expected timeline of deliverables, notifying me if something was out of stock or unavailable, and collaborating on engagement tactics.
At the end of the day, I learned a lot about myself and the administrative side of how to manage my own clients. I am excited to say that at the time of writing this blog post, I am up to three full-time management clients, another on a consulting basis, and am in the process of writing three more proposals.
If you feel like we'd be a great fit and are stressed or overwhelmed about the idea of running your own social media accounts, lets talk.
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