Meet Adrienne Wilkins, founder of Sphere Media Marketing.

Community is at the heart of social media, and few are as focused on using authentic content to connect businesses with their target audience as Adrienne Wilkins, founder of Sphere Media Marketing.

We chatted with her to learn practical tips on how she leveraged Sendible to save over 30 hours a week managing social media for her clients while growing followers for her small business customers by up to 207% in 2020.

The following conversations have been edited for length and clarity.

Tell us a bit about yourself! What do you do?

"My name's Adrienne Wilkins and my company is Sphere Media Marketing. What we really specialise in is helping small local businesses manage their content.

We're one of the few companies in our area that really focuses on creating dedicated content rather than just sharing random posts. We believe in using content that is relevant to their businesses to help them grow."

What were your biggest challenges with social media management before using Sendible?

"The number one thing that I was struggling with as a small business owner myself and helping other people manage their content was just the time that it would take to go from platform to platform. I mean, even with posting to Facebook through Instagram, it never happened the way you wanted it to. So using Sendible has just saved a huge amount of time. I'd say at a minimum it has cut my time in half, if not more than that.

It's allowed me to grow my customer base because I have more time to dedicate to managing their content. And a huge thing that has helped me with using Sendible is the Canva plugin. It's one of my favourites, to not have to download all of those graphics, upload them, and keep them organised. It's really handy to be able to design those on the go."

💡 Want to learn more about Sendible's Canva integration?
Sendible integrates with Canva and many other useful tools! Check out our full suite of integrations here. 👈

What are your favourite Sendible features and how do you use them?

"So Canva, though, I am obsessed with it. I'm absolutely in love with the Canva plugin. It's just a huge time-saver and saves me so much need for organisation. I'm a creative type, so keeping all of my folders together is a challenge for me, which is why that plugin saves time and organisation.

One of the big reasons why I chose Sendible was the Google My Business plugin. It definitely helps me make sure that all my posts are going to one location safely.

I also appreciate being able to tailor each of the messages in different tabs. I can create one overall image and customise that message to make sure it suits the platform. This is definitely a plus.

And I love the layout of the new streams. To be able to just click a button, see who's posting on what stream and where, reply, and comment - it's just super easy and convenient."

What positive results have you seen since using Sendible?

"I mentioned time earlier, but my work week was over 40 hours easily and I was working every day as a one-woman show to try to maintain that. I've really been able to reduce the hours that I work on my business using Sendible. 

It's been an amazing thing for me to be able to trim that time down. It's a great investment for me and my small business! Especially having the ability to monitor accounts and to be able to work on engagement and keep tabs on everyone has really helped.

I have spoken with Heather, she's my go-to girl (Editor note: Heather is Adrienne’s fabulous Customer Success Manager @ Sendible), and in one of our conversations before, I told her how many accounts I was managing and she said, 'Wow, that's like twice what the average person is doing'.

But due to my location, being in rural Alabama, our small businesses are really small. They're not able to pay those large consulting fees and so my prices are very competitive to my market. This is why having the ability to save on time and monitor all those accounts myself is a huge lifesaver.

The calendar features also help me stay consistent with messaging and with planning as well, which we all know is super important with social media."

💡 Want to learn more about Sendible's visual calendar?
Check out the content planning, scheduling, and publishing tools available to you. Learn more 👈

What best practices would you recommend?

"I would definitely recommend using the tabs to customise content. When you create a post, it’s important to be able to go in and alter those messages. Make sure you change those Instagram comments because you don't get a whole lot of text and your audience won’t see it all.

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Andrews Bridal Shoppe (@andrewsbridal)

I reword a lot of my content to make sure that I'm hitting Google keywords, shortening my messages, and using those hashtags for Instagram compared to what I might post on Facebook.

I also love the content tab because on days where I'm struggling to get things out and you're like, 'What am I going to post?' For my customers, I need to pull some content from somewhere and the content tab provides more than enough inspiration. If I don't use a link or a post directly or repost messages, it inspires me to create unique content for that day."

💡 Want to learn more about using Instagram First Comment?
Send a first comment filled with hashtags to go out with every Instagram post to keep your captions clear and boost audience reach. Learn more 👈

What is your advice to others who are considering Sendible?

"Do it! You know, I shopped around and did my research before I chose Sendible. It can be a commitment, especially if you're a small one-person firm or agency like me, and making that commitment can be challenging, but do it.

Sendible has a great support team. Anytime I ever need you guys, y'all are there. To help me, even teach me new things and even go into details on some of the functions that I don't actually use that much but that I should be using.

Plus, the dashboard is super easy compared to other products that I've looked at. So I would just encourage you to pull the trigger and join the team."

💡 Ready to get started?
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What have you found most valuable about having a White Label?

"What’s really valuable, and what I've worked with some of my customers on, is that the White Label has given me an extra tool to share with them.

Not only can they work as a team and collaborate with me on different posts, content, and what needs to go out, but since I work with small businesses - they're not ready to make that big leap in having someone completely manage their content.

So it's a great way to encourage them and get them motivated to post consistently and manage their own content themselves. Plus, the Sendible White Label still keeps me and my specialisation on hand in case they need me."

💡 Interested in a White Label?
The White Label gives you the opportunity to offer a customisable social media management option under your brand. 👈

How have you collaborated with clients or onboarded new team members?

"Having a 7-day or a 14-day trial has really helped because I can go meet with a client, show them how the software works, and how the management platform works. Then they're able to play around with it for a little while and get comfortable. It helps them make a decision and also evaluate their needs.

It’s not me coming in telling them, 'Hey, this is what you need help with,' but they're figuring it out on their own because they're signing in and going, 'Oh, I need to do all of this. What can you help me with?' Giving them that personal experience with the Sendible platform definitely helps.

I also had an intern this summer, a college student who was into studying PR and communications. She was four hours away from her college and was able to telecommute the whole summer. We created her a user and gave her access to all the accounts that I needed her to personally manage. So she was able to work for me all summer and provide huge support virtually.

Especially in 2020 with all the challenges that COVID-19 presented, having extra users on Sendible and being able to tie in interns-partners or customer-partners was extremely helpful."

💡 Interested in Co-branding?
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