In this Loomly Success Story, we had the pleasure of speaking with Katie Campbell, Founder of Katie Creative Co., a social media studio based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Katie focuses on helping fun, local lifestyle businesses connect with their dream clients and customers through social media.
After working in social media (and even creating her own social media major at her college) for five years, Katie founded Katie Creative Co. in 2022 and has been a Loomly customer since day one.
Here’s her story!
“When I think about growth factors, it starts with the values of my business. One is communication: explaining “this is what I’m doing and why I’m doing it” to help clients understand the purpose behind what you’re doing.
Clarity and honesty are also two really important values to me. I’m not selling a dream or promising unrealistic things (something that you see a lot online). The promise I do make is that I’ll focus on community building rather than just going viral, because that’s what the local businesses I serve really need. They need a community that will keep coming back and tell their friends about them.
Community-building is why I fell in love with social media in the first place.”
“We were using Hootsuite at the agency I worked at, and then I was tasked with finding a solution that met our needs better.
“We were looking for something that could handle the number of accounts we were managing per client at a price that worked for our business… Loomly allowed us to do that.”
We also wanted something that was easy for us to learn how to use, as well as our clients. The learning curve can be huge and many solutions are complex, so asking non-technical people to learn it wasn’t an option. Loomly took hardly any time to learn how to navigate, especially for our clients.”
“One of my favorite features is the Instagram ‘First Comment’ feature. It’s a great place to put hashtags since I don’t like how they look in the caption.
I also love the ‘Post Ideas’ feature. It cuts out the step of researching holidays or trending hashtags. The best part is that I can handle these tasks all on one platform, so you don’t have to keep leaving Loomly.
The same goes for the collaboration features. It cuts out needing to go to 1,000 places to share information. Clients can see the mockups in Loomly and it saves so much time, which is important for a successful agency. It makes things easier for everybody. I’ve had clients say it, I’ve experienced it, and I just love it.”
“Like I said earlier, being super clear with client communication. It’s important that expectations are clear so you both understand what you’re focused on. When you’re running an agency, you’re everything: CEO, founder, social media manager, marketing manager, influencer marketing manager, accountant… everything. So, being extremely clear with tasks for each client keeps me organized.
Something else I wish I would have known is that when you’re starting off you can do portfolio work for brands that aren’t even your client. There’s a lot of merit to building out your portfolio early on.
One thing that I’m still learning is that you HAVE to advocate for yourself. You have to hand your business card to the manager at that restaurant. You have to go talk to your mom’s friend’s brother’s friend who owns the gym down the street about social media.”
“It’s one of the hardest things to do, but you being confident in yourself and your business is going to radiate out. Why would somebody hire somebody who isn’t confident in their own abilities?”
“My favorite part is making a difference for the people who run the local businesses I serve. Baton Rouge is a smaller town, so a lot of people are still catching on to the fact that social media is a really important part of growing a business. So, being able to educate them and see the difference it makes is really fun for me.
As far as technical tasks, I love photo shoots because I get to be with clients and get out of the house. My dog is my only coworker right now, so it’s nice to get out and do hands-on things.”
“For small and local businesses, Instagram still has the best opportunity for growth, especially with all the features and types of posts that are relatively easy to navigate. But, local businesses shouldn’t forget about Facebook either.
For social media in general, I have to say TikTok. Something like 50% of users will be influenced to make a purchase on TikTok even when they didn’t originally log on to shop. It’s the biggest for the younger generation who are becoming the leading consumers.”
“Oat Haus. They make oat-based butters (like peanut butter) and are a podcast sponsor of ours. They do such a good job of balancing personal and professional content. Their founder is on Instagram stories, answering questions, creating reels, being silly, and sharing recipes that she makes in her kitchen, but they also have really professional branding photos, videos, and GIFs. I’m so engaged with their social media and I’m obsessed with their brand and product.”