In an age where every business needs social media, it’s not hard to find clients. But finding good clients you actually want to work with?
That’s where things get tricky.
You might create inspired content and innovative social media campaigns.
But it’s all for nothing if you don’t have enough business to keep the lights on.
In this guide, we’ll show you how to find social media clients that are a good fit for your agency and achieve sustainable business growth.
💡Note: While we’re focusing on agencies in this guide, these tactics will work just as well for freelancers looking to get more social media marketing clients.
There are two different approaches you can use to find social media clients:
Working on one channel at the start tends to be the most pragmatic approach if you’re just starting out. It allows you to focus and sharpen your sales process. It’s also effective when you have limited resources.
Which channels you then choose will depend on your business and your strengths. For example, if you’re a great writer, or have someone on your team who is, you might want to focus on SEO content marketing. If you have a large network, you may spend most of your time getting recommendations and referrals. And if you enjoy pitching, cold outreach could be a great bet.
However, having multiple channels does have its benefits. For starters, it could bring in a higher quality or volume of leads month after month. It also ensures you never have too many eggs in one basket.
So while you may want to focus on one channel now, keep this in mind for your agency’s future.
Every agency is different but here’s one example of a growth agency’s marketing mix.
When choosing your channel, remember that each one has a different cost and payback period. This means that some sources are better for getting social media clients fast while others are an investment over time.
For example, say you need a client now. You could find multiple clients looking for on-demand work on platforms such as Upwork.
But if you want to bring in a steady stream of quality clients? Inbound marketing – such as regularly creating great social media content – is the best way to go.
You’ll also want to think about scalability. While asking for recommendations may be a good way to get your first clients, you have no way to predict how much business you’ll bring in each month.
On the other hand, once you set up inbound marketing and a cold pitching schedule, you can figure out your close rate and calculate a rough estimate of how many new leads you can expect.
So with all of this in mind, a strategic way to get social media clients is to start with a short-term channel, while laying the groundwork for longer-term channels. This will help support your cash flow and establish your agency while also driving future growth.
When you’re desperate for new business, it may be tempting to cast your net as wide as possible. But ultimately, this brings in clients who just aren’t a good fit – which means wasted time and budget.
Niching down not only allows you to focus your lead generation but also helps you develop your industry expertise. If you specialize in one type of client, you can really dive into the biggest problems, the content that performs best, and how to talk to their audience.
And ultimately, this can be your selling point.
Let’s say a law firm was looking for someone to take care of their social media. Who do you think they’d choose: a general agency, or someone who knows the legal industry and their audience as well as they do?
To identify your ideal social media client, ask yourself:
Hint: the answer shouldn’t just be ‘the ones who pay the most’.
When starting out, look at businesses in your backyard that fit your client profile. Sure they may not always have the biggest budgets, but they can be a great way to fill out your client roster and build your reputation in the community.
Reach out and introduce yourself, business owner to business owner. There are lots of ways to make an impression:
Before you can become a thought leader in your niche, you have to join the conversation. Make a list of conferences, meetups, forums, breakfasts, and any other events your clients attend.
This is the perfect opportunity to talk to business owners and get to what they care about, what their audience cares about, and what problems they’re having. Who knows – maybe you have the answer!
But you don’t just want to be an attendee at these events. By taking more of an active role – say as a guest speaker at a conference on a topic you specialize in – you can help shape the conversation and contribute to the community.
You’ll also want to find out where your social media clients spend their time online. These are just a few ways to start building your reputation as a thought leader.
Each of these is just a piece of the puzzle. The more you get your agency out there, the more you’ll be seen as a trusted authority – and someone worth working with.
On average, referred leads typically have a much higher close rate than other marketing channels, meaning this is one of your most important channels. Especially if they’re referred from existing happy clients.
It’s not hard to figure out why – we tend to trust recommendations from people we know, and when clients rave about the amazing results they got, it’s a lot easier to see the value in what you do.
But rather than waiting for clients to send business your way, you can take matters into your own hands. In fact, most clients are happy to recommend you – you just have to ask.
It’s worth noting that you don’t have to have a formal referral program. Typically, if clients love you and the work you do, they’ll be happy to recommend you for free. But if you’ve found that you aren’t getting as many recommendations as you’d like, you can try offering an incentive, like a discount on a client’s invoice.
Identify a list of non-competing agencies that serve similar clients – say, tech development agencies or content marketing agencies.
Introduce yourself and propose a partnership: you get new clients who have already been vetted and the agency gets a cut (and vice versa). Everybody wins!
Quick note: before you make any agreements, assess if the benefits outweigh the cost. While it’s definitely easier than other forms of lead generation, you want to ensure the finder’s fee isn’t going to negate the value of your new client.
You can also scope out larger social media agencies that are looking to scale up. This tactic works particularly well if you offer more niche services, such as working with certain business types or audiences, or if you specialize in newer social media platforms like TikTok.
Online marketplaces like Upwork, Fiverr, Freelancer or Airtasker get a bit of a bad rap. And we won’t lie – you’ll find your share of posts like this.
But there’s a reason so many freelancers have made their start on these online marketplaces.
The clients are already there and need your social media services. And though there are some who won’t be worth your time, you’ll also find big fish like Microsoft or Amway.
As well as those clients right in the middle, who need your speciality services and have a realistic budget.
To help you sort the good from the bad, we’ve assembled a quick list of red flags to watch out for.
This is a more work-intensive method, but one that allows you to carefully choose the kind of social media clients you will be working with.
The key to cold pitching is putting the right offer in the right place at the right time. Rather than being an uninvited presence in a prospect’s inbox, you’re helping them avoid the hassle of the interviewing process and promising something of value.
Here’s our tried and true cold pitching process.
When in doubt, search “best [company type] in [location]”. This brings up review sites with a whole bunch of companies in your niche. You can also use tools like Crunchbase to source potential leads.
You’ll be sending the same pitch to all these prospects (albeit personalized), so make sure they all fall under the same category and have similar offerings.
Once you’ve got a list of companies, you’ll want to choose the best contact. This is typically the CMO or Head of Marketing, though it will differ depending on the company.
You can use an email finder like Hunter.io to get all the information you need.
To write a good pitch:
You should also personalize each email. You can:
This allows you to personalize your pitches and send them at scale. Otherwise, sending hundreds of cold emails can chew up a lot of your time (and clutter your inbox).
A cold email software like Lemlist is a great way to make this process easier. Lemlist has a whole bunch of resources you can use to improve your cold pitching process, including this cold email example.
Many agencies are so busy focusing on clients that they forget about their own accounts. But social media is a great way to do some inbound marketing and show off the great work clients can expect from you.
Apart from a solid social media strategy, make sure your content:
As you can see, getting new social media marketing clients takes a lot of time and effort. But how many hours a week should you be spending on lead generation?
(Hint: it’s more than you’re spending now.)
In general, you should be actively looking for new business. This is the key to sustainable growth – and ensures your agency isn’t dependent on any one client.
We suggest spending around 30-50% of your time prospecting and doing business development.
Sure, spending that much time on getting new social media clients may seem unrealistic when you’re focused on all the other parts of running an agency.
You know, like producing great social media content.
So if you start allocating more time towards building your business, won’t your current clients suffer?
With Kontentino, you can save 20 hours per month per person – hours you can reinvest straight into business growth.
We streamline content creation, approval, posting, reporting, and all the other time-consuming stuff. This way, you can keep impressing your current clients AND dedicate enough attention to building your brand.
Try Kontentino for free and see how much time you can reinvest in your business. Start your 14-day trial now – no credit card needed.
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