1. IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Imperial College Business School
The impact of social media on new business acquisition
of digital marketing agency
by
Maneerat Surasakkamjorn
Meng Xue
Pichaya Reangrattham
Pornchanan Suphayak
Weijing Chen
Wongpan Wisitrasameewong
Word Count:
A report submitted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for MSc Strategic Marketing degree
July 2014

2. Table of Contents
1. Executive Summary……………………………………………………………………
2. Acknowledgement……………………………………………………………………..
3. Introduction and Background……………………………………………………………
4. Aims and Objectives…………………………………………………………………..
5. Industry Overview………………………………………………………………………
5.1 How B2B Business copes with the rise of social media……………………….
5.2 B2B Customer Decision Journey …………………………………………….
6. Big Group’s current performance on social media platform…………………......
7. Competitor Analysis……………………………………………………………………..
8. Primary Research Methodology, Analysis and Findings……………………………..
9. Conclusions and Recommendations…………………………………………………
10. References………………………………………………………………………………..
11. Appendices……………………………………………………………………………….

3. 1. Executive Summary
This report explores the overall social media impact of the UK’s leading digital agency,
Big Group. The clearest problem being investigated shows that there is no successful
industry practice to benchmark and generate useful recommendations for Big Group's
social media strategies. Therefore, this report highlights the analyses of the opportunities
and challenges facing by Big Group and the strategies being implemented. In order to
pursue our objectives of being able to identify the role and impact of social media on
agency selection process of Big Group’s clients, primary and secondary researches
were implemented including surveys, phone and face to face interview and as well as
social media analytics and white paper reports to pursue the important current objectives
of leveraging social media to acquire businesses and validate the company’s value as
well as to express thought leadership. And more importantly, the recommendations of
how might Big Group overcome its challenges as it would not solely rely on social media
but also other online and offline platforms in optimizing agency selection of its clients in
the future.

4. 2. Acknowledgements
This project would never have been completed without help, time, and support from
a number of people.
First of all, we would like to express our deepest gratitude to Ed Riseman, Big Group
General Manager, for his support and generosity in providing us company’s
information, contact lists of the survey respondents, and the office tour.
We also would like to acknowledge help from Angela Dalrymple for her professional
guidance, advice, and assistance in providing us extra contact lists. It has been
greatly appreciated.
Finally, special thanks go to a number of interviewees for the primary research part
including, marketing directors, marketing officers, procurement officers from various
industries, digital marketing agency directors, and digital marketing consultants.
Also, we would like to thank our lecturers, Mike Berry for useful insights from the
interview. Without supports from these people, we would have never achieved this
project.

5. 3. Introduction and Background
“Bringing digital, experiential and creative ideas to life” is a phrase that can be used
to best describe Big Group. Founded in 1991, Big Group is a marketing agency that
has more than twenty years of expertise in integrated marketing communication. It
serves clients from both B2B and B2C sectors by offering consulting services on
marketing activities, social media marketing, web design and development, e-
commerce, and more. Trading partners of Big Group encompass businesses
specifically from tourism, financial, automotive, entertainment and FMCG sectors.
The company has been maintaining solid relationships with its past and current
clients, such as MasterCard, Audi, Heritage, Royal Mail, Kraft and Hyundai. Hyundai
has outsourced its imagery for UK marketing and advertising activities primarily to
Big Group (Big Group, 2014). Due to its outstanding performance over the past
years, Big Group is the only UK agency ranked among the top five UK digital
agencies by Marketing Week magazine for the annual YouGov Interactive Agency
Reputation Survey (Econsultancy, n.d.), and it has won many other rewards along
the way as well.
Nowadays, digital breakthroughs, combined with increasing online business-to-
business competition, have presented agencies with big challenges, and at the same
time, opportunities (Greenback, 2013). Facing this situation calls for a strategic
application of social media to effectively create a competitive advantage. Currently,
Big Group is trying to explore what roles social media could play in developing
values for B2B businesses. Depending on analytic results, different social platforms

6. could offer different benefits at each stage of the customer journey. Social media has
recently been proven to be the great help in public relations, brand monitoring and
interactive communications. Moreover, with the rise of social media trends, B2B
companies must be well-equipped with these upcoming and ongoing trends in order
to stay competitive in their respective industries.

7. 4. Aims and Objectives
The key objective of this project is to establish an effective B2B social media marketing
strategy to increase opportunities in acquiring new businesses. To further illustrate, the
project aims to explore the impact of social media in B2B marketing context, especially
by evaluating the degree of social media influence on Big Group’s clients purchase
decision process in its supply chain, particularly, in procurement and marketing
department on agency selection process.
The secondary objectives of this project are to validate company’s value proposition to
establish Big Group authority in the specialised area and to express thought leadership.
These two factors will partly support and contribute to the success of the new business
acquisition.

8. 5. Industry Overview
5.1 How B2B Business copes with the rise of social media
B2B companies nowadays involve themselves in the social media world to stay
competitive in the industry. According to the B2B Content Marketing Institute, 73% of the
B2B marketers utilized social media and produced more content in 2013 than previously,
as well as increasing their budgets for social media and content marketing to levels of
30% more on average (Content Marketing, 2013). Research shows that social media is
definitely an innovative communication tool that becomes the single most important
content source to inform, engage and persuade potential buyers (Kantowitz, 2014).
There are still some companies neglecting the use of social media to connect with
different agents in their supply chain, and lagging behind in content strategies. Research
found that only 64% of UK companies use social media as a marketing tool, meaning
that over a third do not (Jensen, n.d.). These companies use social media mainly to
create brand awareness, generate demand to further drive inbound leads, and increase
revenue: 80% use Facebook, 78% use Twitter, and 51% use LinkedIn (Hotz, 2010).
Also, looking at year on year usage figures, several social networks are on the rise as
well, including YouTube, Google+, Instagram, Pinterest and Vine (Young, 2013).
Moreover, LinkedIn is believed to be the “professional social network” and widely used
especially in the B2B industry as it is proven to be almost 300% more effective than
Facebook and Twitter for lead generation (Pulizzi, 2014). B2B marketers have
acknowledged the value of social media, yet have been slower to adopt social media
strategies - only 32% compared with 52% B2C marketers (Kobenschlag, 2014).

9. Overall, social media in B2B industry as a whole is on the rise. However, there is still a
lot of room for businesses to further utilize this communication channel - as of now it is
still difficult to accurately quantify how much social media contributes to the overall ROI,
compared to other marketing efforts. Social media is still a relatively young marketing
channel for B2B marketers, often resulting in an initial wait-and-see approach (Sunrise
Packaging, 2011).
5.2 B2B Customer Decision Journey
With the prosperity of social media, customer decision-making process is no longer
linear path (McKinsey & Company, 2013). To achieve business objective, B2B marketing
agencies need to build a thorough understanding of the multi-channel client decision
journey.

10. Step 1: Identification
Different from B2C customer, there is no impulse buying in terms of hiring a new agency.
Utilizing a mix of online and offline method, clients can identify who the agency is and
what it does primarily through organic search and personal networks.
Pardot report reveals that 80% of clients utilize organic search (Google, Bing and
Yahoo) as a starting point of identification (Pardot, 2013). In-depth analysis of samples
also demonstrates the upstream websites clients visited online prior to agency
homepage: Google (SapientNitro, 35%), LinkedIn (SapientNitro, 4.8%) and FaceBook
(Akqa, 6.8%) (Alexa, 2014) (Appendix from competitor analysis).
Personal and social networks altogether account for almost 20% of referrals (Pardot,
2013). Discovery of a prospective agency can be directed from industry expertise,
colleagues, senior partners and general influence from external environment.

11. Notably, in general social media seems irrelevant approaches to reaching the agency,
which is especially true in small-sized agencies.
Apart from the active path to finding the agency, RFPs(request for proposal) is adopted
by a group of clients who lack access to agencies. As a result, they post RFPs on Twitter
and digital trade body to passively solicit new ideas(Smart Insights, 2014).
Step 2: Research
Human interaction offline provides the major source of agency assessment. As
agencies consist of people whom client would work with for a long period, they are
strongly influenced by people from his network. On online platforms, clients mainly use
official websites, intermediary websites, and social media to obtain in-depth data.
Agency’s homepage provides clients with solid validation with clearly statement of
previous experience, expertise in certain sector and past clients. Statistics show that
SapientNitro, a strong competitor of Big Group, could receive 35,615 daily pageviews
and 8,687 visitors (Statmyweb, 2014).
Intermediary websites, like Agency Spotter and Creative Brief, serve useful purpose of
displaying rankings, reviews and creative testimonials.
Social media can offer agency profile, updated news and even brand positioning. Twitter
has the unique function of stating the tone of the agency, which is a strong indicator of
brand personality (Tina, 2014). LinkedIn is proved to be the most relevant social tool
when searching for contact information and professional solutions. These social media

12. performances altogether demonstrate agency’s profession in delivering creative
marketing results.
Step 3: Evaluation
Once clients have formed a list of viable agencies, they begin to identify each option
through conference call and visitation. Then, the selection unit will make further
evaluation based on relevant criteria (Industrial marketing management, 1988).
The overwhelming importance of personal chemistry in selecting agency is justified by
interviewee and secondary data.
Surprisingly, B2B customers showed approximately 60% higher potential of considering,
purchasing and paying a higher price when strong connections existing between client
and agency (CEB Marketing Leadership Council™, 2013).
Relevant experience and expertise are among the top selection criteria. Moreover,
creativity of the marketing agency is highly related to its competence. Finally,
geography, track record, time availability, and budget are the most straightforward
factors that could determine the transaction.

13. The impact of social media is minimal due to the essence of B2B business, which
involves real people and millions of money (Matt, 2014).
Step 4: Decision
Through evaluation, the less qualified agencies are eliminated and a couple of
candidates are left to the final round.
The common decision routine includes chemistry meeting, formal pitch and final
presentation (Industrial marketing management, 1988). In this process, people-to-people
meeting undoubtedly has the greatest influence on final decision.

14. In most cases, the selection unit contains the head of marketing department who makes
purchase decision and procurement people that are in charge of negotiation, contract
and financial issue.
The decision-making pattern varies from company to company, including evaluation
scoreboard and casual discussion among colleagues. However, it should be pointed out
that no decision is made based on agency’s social media performance (Kerry, 2014).
Step 5: Post-purchase
In post-purchase phase, the validation of previous work and client-agency relationship
are determinant factors in maintaining cooperation. On business level, clients look at the
quantitative results of previous work. Whether the agency is acting as a helping hand to
achieve clients’ business goals or not highly affects the client’s evaluations (Gary
Howard, 2014). On personal level, open communication through Twitter could largely
improve the relationship. However, the positive influence is limited since the purchase
decision is down to selection unit instead of individual (John, 2014).

15. 6. Big Group’s current performance on social media platform
Nowadays, social media is no longer limited to customer relationship and community
management domains, but also includs research, insights, creative content, strategy,
reputation management and many other aspects. As social media has become more
accessible during the past few years, research by IAB and LBi (2012) has found that this
factor has become one of the top reasons among 39% of UK organizations to increase
their usage of social media as one of their business tools.
Although the use of social media has yet to count as its main priority, for Big Group the
purpose of a social media platform can somewhat dictate higher business performance
and assist in improving company’s reputation. To ensure attractiveness and a variety of
content as well as industry relevance, Big Group has broken down its social content into
four areas, which are events and history, brand personality, case studies and client
works, and industry comments and blogs. Apart from its rich, well-designed and
interactive web page, Big Group is currently active in three social media platforms,
namely Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. With up-to-date and tailored content, Big Group
has been aiming at sharing the Big Group family story and integrating these three social
networks as part of its strategic communication plan.
Facebook
Big Group has used Facebook since 2011 as its main channel to share and show case ,
featuring a number of welcoming posts for new employees, instant activity updates and
behind-the-scenes photos of its latest projects (Appendix 1&2). Besides showing office

16. personality, one of the goals of its Facebook fan page is also to drive traffic to the
brand’s website and blog posts. In addition to company updates, recent posts include
key digital trends from around the world that help develop brand relevance and
specialisms in the mind of consumers.
By posting more educational and industry-related content, Big Group can signify the
brand’s innovativeness and establish a thought leadership position, as seen in research
showing that the vast majority of B2B IT buyers preferred social and educational content
as opposed to promotional content (IDG Connect, 2014).
Most popular posts with a higher rate of engagement, i.e. receiving more likes and
comments, are mostly related to the showcasing of Big Group’s community and office
atmosphere. This can fulfill the use of social media as an employee retention and new
talent acquisition tool. However, having relatively low engagement and talking about
rates in general (Appendix 3), Big Group’s Facebook fan page seems to currently serve
as a one-way communication channel only, which can encourage higher levels of brand
transparency but tends to engage only current employeesand not many external parties.
Twitter
Having similar content to its Facebook page, but with more immediate and real-time
updates on company’s current activities, Big Group’s Twitter account features several
insightful Tweets showing what is going on with regard to key digital and media trends
(Appendix 4). Frequent Tweeted topics are related to advertising, marketing, PR, social

17. media and Twitter (Twitalyzer, 2014), however, the overall retweet rate is considerably
lower which could be due to the fact that Big Group is a B2B company with an
insufficient number of active followers and shareable content – having low Twitter activity
at the rate of 0.7 posts per day, but being able to maintain an average engagement rate
of 29 retweets from other people per 100 of Big Group’s tweets (Appendix 5).
All in all, according to one of the social analysis tools, Twitalyzer, Big Group is
considered as a Casual Twitter User, or low-influence Twitter User, which gained a
relatively low impact score at 0.3 on average along with a Klout score of 44 out of 100
(Appendix 6), implying that each tweet from Big Group is unable to draw the attention of
its followers. This may also be the result of having a weak network of influencers. Still,
there is a growing number of Big Group’s Twitter followers within the past few months
(Appendix 7).
LinkedIn
Big Group’s LinkedIn presence directly serves as both the company’s recruitment and
marketing tool since most of the posts concentrate on human resources and recruitment
updates as well as an in-depth company profile to further confirm the company’s
reputation and success stories to potential customers (LinkedIn, 2014).
In terms of overall content, some of them are similar to the ones posted on the other two
social media channels, Facebook and Twitter, with each post containing an easy access
to web links that could generate traffic and integrate all of its social media platforms

18. together. Most posts on Big Group’s LinkedIn page are also linked with the company’s
blog which offers useful and insightful information on digital marketing and innovative
trends. Last but not least, Big Group has used LinkedIn to promote its brand new
innovative product, called Mention.to, by creating a separate showcase LinkedIn page
specifically for this product (LinkedIn, 2014). With regard to its performance, LinkedIn is
still not very active if compared to the previously mentioned social media platforms.

19. 7. Competitor Analysis
*This page has been slightly updated, please proof read it again
Besides the thorough understanding of social media in the world of B2B commerce, and
its impact on B2B digital agencies, Big Group should study the external environment
through analysis of key competitors’ social performance in order to find industry
benchmarks and take implications from their strengths and weaknesses. This section
provides a general industry review based on analysis of 10 digital marketing agencies’
social performance, with specific focus on Big Group’s three most established
competitors, namely R/GA, SapientNitro, and DigitasLBi UK, together with two
equivalent direct competitors, namely Rufus Leonard and Code Computerlove.
Secondary research shows the most utilized social media platforms for digital marketing
agencies are Facebook(%), Twitter(%), and Linkedin (%). As a part agency’s integrated
marketing communication strategy, they lead visitors to other agency properties,
including agency website, product website, recent client campaigns and official blogs.
Agencies averagely allocate around 10% of the agency team effort into social media and
community management so as to generate actual attention for the agency. (B,J. 2012)
Generally, the degree of social reaction and performance is positively related to the size
of the agency and the revenue generated, Secondary research has shown that social
media, especially Linkedin and Facebook, contribute to around 2% - 5% of website
traffic for the larger agencies. In contrast, it has a very limited impact on smaller -sized
agencies’ website traffic. (Appendix 7 ).
Top performers undoubtedly are the two industry leaders, R/GA and SapientNitro. Being
global digital agencies, they are able to build a large community and impact across all its

20. social media channels, gaining the highest Klout Score. For further analysis of
competitors refer to Appendix XX-XX
(Klout, 2013)

21. Facebook
(Socialbakers, 2014)

22. (Wildfire, 2014)
R/GA remains the most popular on Facebook, having the largest fan-base of all brands
with 22,623 likes, followed by SapientNitro. Their large community can be attributed to
the success of their digital marketing services and global expansion. The strength of
these two big digital agencies is evident by their higher engagement rate, resulting in a
rapid increase in followers since January 2012 (Wildfire, 2014). Both R/GA and
SapientNitro Facebook fan pages are very active as they regularly post interesting
insights and digital trends aggregated from various online sources such as adweek.com,
theatlantic.com, etc. Yet acting as an online content curator, R/GA has managed to
better engage its current followers by consistently creating shareable content (Appendix
1), leading the brand to gain more likes and shares per post, while most of the
SapientNitro posts are linked with its SapientNitro blog posts to encourage web traffic.

23. On the other hand, smaller UK digital agencies Rufus Leonard and Code Computerlove
tend to focus on engaging internal parties, but have yet to reach out to new followers as
the majority of their posts are related to internal communication, for example company
events, job vacancies, personnel updates, etc., which is a similar scenario to the current
Big Group’s Facebook page resulting in a lower ‘talked about’ and share rate than global
agencies (Appendix 2). From these findings, to differentiate a brand from its competition,
Facebook can definitely play an important role in representing the brand’s thought
leadership by providing not just ordinary content, but rather offering new and surprising
content that addresses its clients’ issues.

24. Twitter
(Wildfire by Google, 2014)
The growth rate of social media followers speaks for the development of the agencies’
influence in their own sector (Wood,B. 2013). Primary research shows that Twitter is a
key step involved in examining an agency’s thought processes and level of
communication with its audience, which validates the agency’s expertise within the
digital marketing industry (Tina, 2014). Apart from that, marketing people are most likely

25. to be attracted to a distinctive brand personality reflected on Twitter (Carrie, 2014).
Therefore, the engagement rate and content management are significant in improving
social media performance. According to Wildfire (2014), R/GA leads the industry in
terms of growing Twitter influence, followed by SapientNitro and DigitalsLBi UK.
Generally, the best top three performers feature a higher update frequency, a more
engaging audience group, and more active conversations (Appendix 3). Amongst these,
R/GA has the highest social authority ranking.
The content breakdown analysis indicates that R/GA has differentiated itself using a
wider variety of topics, a sharp brand personality and a consistent tone of
communication in its tweets - with the majority of links coming from digiday.com,
nypost.com, and m.adage.com, which cover various appealing topics including social
issues, industry hot topics, etc. In comparison, a common content strategy has been
applied by lower-ranking UK agencies which are to keep followers informed of agency
news and services. For example, DigitalsLBi UK, Rufus Leonard and Code
Computerlove mainly share links from their own official websites (Appendix 4).
Interestingly, the most popular tweets from R/GA, showing a witty, entertaining, and
sometimes sarcastic tweeting style, gain the highest engagement rate (Appendix 5).
These tweeting styles from R/GA can well demonstrate its strong brand personality that
sets it apart from the other agencies’ feeds.

26. The majority of twitter interaction is among the people who are already acquaintances or
supporters of the agency (Appendix 6) (Baer,J. 2012). However, frequent interaction with
more influential Twitter users helps grow the agency’s social impact as well.
Linkedin
Linkedin appears to be a powerful social media platform for the digital agencies - by
having a relatively higher number of followers, compared to Twitter and Facebook
(Linkedin, 2014). The three global digital agencies - DigitasLBi; R/GA; and SapientNitro -
demonstrate a stronger presence on Linkedin, with higher engagement, than the UK
agencies (Rival IQ, 2014). This is due to their global reputation, wider network of
affiliated Linkedin pages, and frequent updates made over time. The topics posted on
Linkedin are usually success stories of the companies, as well as industry updates and
insights. The global digital agencies have utilized the “Careers” section consistently with
a high number of job openings - showing that Linkedin is also another channel for the
companies to recruit new employees. In contrast, the UK agencies have very limited or
no updates at all on Linkedin: Rufus Leonard has posted some updates on its success
and company updates on internship/job opportunities on the Home page, despite having
the “Careers” section with no active job openings. In addition, Code Computerlove has
created its Linkedin profile, but the company does not seem to utilize Linkedin as its
communication channel, for example showing no post/updates on the Home page. From
the analysis it can be seen that Linkedin can be used as an influential platform to
regularly share companies’ engagement and success stories among people and
companies within the industry – emphasizing companies’ transparency – and, at the
same time, it can also be utilized as an effective recruitment platform, as companies can

27. specifically target potential employees by looking through the published profiles on such
a professional network.
Source: Rival IQ

29. 8. Primary Research Methodology, Analysis and Findings
Primary Research Methodology
In-depth interview were conducted with 4 groups of prospect business partners:
marketing director from client company, expert from 3rd party agency, procurement
specialist and CEO of digital marketing agency. Interviews with first 3 groups provided
practical insights in understanding the whole agency selection journey from client’s
standpoint. Feedbacks from marketing people and 3rd party agencies were of great
importance in understanding the top agency selection criteria and searching platforms
on which Big Group could optimize its content. On the other hand, interview with
competitors offered not only a benchmark of the current usage of social media, but also
a glimpse of opportunities to enhance Big Group’s social media performance.
Findings and analysis
1. Key agency selection criteria
General interviewees noted that relevant experience and expertise in specific sector are
always among the most important attributes. Previous performance and past clients are
essential indicators of agencies’ competence, which has huge impacts on final customer
decision.
Besides, many a number of respondents said that personal chemistry, whether the
agency could be on good terms with the client or not, is largely taken into consideration.
Team-orientation, organizational culture, working environment, and more importantly,
emotional linkage between two sides, are of great significance in evaluating an agency.

30. Additionally, quite a few interviewees referred to rigid factors: geography, track record,
availability, and particularly cost, which is the most straightforward determinant in
negotiation.
Quotes:
ML, Paypal : “Three main criteria when choosing agency at all levels are first, will they
do an amazing job. I will also look at their past clients and pitch presentation. Second,
will they be good and easy to work with? And cost, of course.”
KG, AAR: “People, core capabilities – they need to show what they are good at.
Expertise, personal chemistry is very important. Also in the pitch scenario, they will need
to be able to show that they are confident, comfortable, and promise to deliver an
amazing job.”
2. Identification of candidate agencies
The respondents mentioned multiple sources of information as a start-point for candidate
agencies selection. Search engine and peer recommendation were the most commonly
used channels.
This implicates the significance for agencies to optimize SEO strategy, and meanwhile
manage a well-established brand reputation both online and offline.
A peer recommendation was mainly articulated to happen through face-to-face
conversations from an individual’s networks at the occasion of business networking
events, supplier exhibitions or casual meetings with colleagues, just to name a few.

31. Some respondents also mentioned recommendations from LinkedIn groups, however,
the influence of LinkedIn is on a mild declination. Relatively speaking, peer
recommendation carries the most credibility than search engine results and Linkedin
groups when developing a candidate list.
Quotes:
IT, Proxima: “SM is helping us to be seen more widely. Organizations worldwide can see
us.”
JM, Cleeview Limited: “A B2B buying journey could be triggered by an external
stimulation. A marketing agency can use social media to maximize that stimulus.”
TF, Consultant: “To select candidates, I used to refer to LinkedIn procurement groups.
But not any more. They are not as reliable as before.”
3. Key research platforms
Official website, intermediary website, and social media are key online platforms in
searching for agency insights.
Almost every interviewee from client side was willing to spend a large amount of time on
agency’s official website. They believed the homepage provides solid background
information of agencies’ expertise, experience and past clients.
Several interviewees mentioned visiting intermediary website to gain insights. That is
where marketing people could acknowledge testimonials, rankings and customer

32. reviews of each candidate. Creative Brief, Quora and IPA were frequently recommended
for agencies to enhance their visibility and optimize their content.
Interviewees from client and 3rd
party noted that social media is commonly used to
leverage engagement, creative efforts and brand personality, which are significant
attributes in evaluating the company performance.
Quotes:
MB, Consultant: “The core media is their own website. The presence of social media is
of defensive reason: just be there on social media and hopefully it could be more
influential in the near future.”
KG, AAR: “Social media pages are good starting-point to find agency’s tone and
positioning, and agencies don’t pay enough attention to it.”
4. The major function of social media in acquiring new clients
The majority of interviewees used social media to effectively evaluate agencies’
marketing performance. To be specific, several of them mentioned LinkedIn and Twitter,
as these two platforms offer useful information on agency profile, contact information,
updated news and brand personality.
However, interviewees generally agreed that client-agency relationship is basically a
human relationship that is largely influenced by people-to-people meeting rather than
social media. Social media platforms could be irrelevant in choosing the people that
clients would work with on daily basis.

33. A number of interviewees further pointed out that B2B purchase are usually made by a
decision unit. Social media might influence individual’s opinion on specific agency, but it
cannot determine the deal.
To conclude, the major function of social media is to help agencies provide positive
online presence and enable them to reach out to more prospective clients without the
limitation of location or time. Hence, it is essential for agencies to enhance and maintain
a high level of visibility on social media.
Quotes:
KG, AAR: “They never make any judgment based on social media. Clients may be
interested in their feed, but social media is not a determinant factor.”
JM, Consultant: “It may have influence on one person, but not big enough to change the
whole group’s idea.”
5. Social media management
A Hub & Spoke management structure is most applicable for digital marketing agencies.
Employees are granted the freedom to post anything in accordance with the
acknowledged social media policy. This is to ensure the information authenticity and
security.
Respondents noted that it would be difficult to measure the ROI of social media, but
would be easier to operate on a campaign level. For example, they would measure the
numbers of sales, conversion, click-through rates, number of completed survey, new

34. sign-ups from database, engagement rates including shares, rewards, retweets, likes,
pins etc. by using analytical tools including Radient6, Hotspot, Twtrland, Alexa,
Brandwatch, klout, SimplyMeasured.
The majority of respondents implied that they would prefer to maintain the current level
of investment on social media, mainly because as a medium-sized independent agency,
social media had not shown a significant value in attracting new business opportunities.
Quotes:
JM, Consultant: “Probably not , leave it to the current level.”
GJ, FKC London: “Yes we have a central social media policy that is strictly followed by
our digital marketing team.”
GJ, FKC London: “We do not measure social media ROI, because the pure client
acquisition from social media is 0.”
GJ, FKC London: “The current social media account for no more than 5% of the
agency’s activity. So maybe I would keep it at the current level.”
List of interviewees

35. 9. Conclusions and Recommendations