We Interviewed Impact Media House & Learned These 10 Marketing Tips – Agency Spotlight #1

We were fortunate enough to interview Caroline Langden, the founder of Impact Media House which is a leading Social Media Marketing Agency.

We wanted to learn about her experience within the marketing sphere, and so we broke down the interview into 10 key questions we thought would most benefit our readers.

This is the first of our new series of interviews we are doing with the world’s leading social media marketers and agencies, which we hope will bring great benefit to small businesses and individuals looking to grow their presence online.

Without further ado:

1. What do you enjoy most about working in social media, and what keeps you motivated in your role?

I love working with so many different niches!

There are many things that truly translate across the board in terms of marketing and storytelling, but to get creative in each industry, be a pioneer by bringing elements from one industry into another, and fine-tuning our skills as storytellers, editors, designers – that’s what keeps the job so exciting and fun.

Meeting other founder’s also keeps me motivated & excited to try new things!

2. Can you share a memorable success story from your career where a social media campaign made a significant impact for a small business?

OMG I love this question.

For the most part, our strategies emphasize slow, sustainable, meaningful growth – for socials & community-building. BUT. We had just finished optimizing a new client’s instagram profile, we created her email opt-in, and built out her funnels so she was primed and ready when people came knocking for her offer.

Then her reel blew up.

1M views. 2M view. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Which translated to her other reels getting more views & her freebies being downloaded like wildfire. And her calls booking out.

What makes this so significant is it wasn’t a “wow that’s so cool it went viral” moment then it ended. And it wasn’t a “wow it went viral we need to SCRAM to come up with a good offer and know where to send these people to optimize it.” It was a done deal – offers were solid, the funnels were set, we just watched the results happen.

Now, to set expectations, this does not happen to every client. Virality is not the goal but it’s a great biproduct when it’s based in strategy. Her account has now stabilized, she jumped 60K followers, and now she’s building a community from that incredible post.

3. How do you stay updated with the latest trends and changes in social media platforms and algorithms?

Creator account, Later blog, following 2-3 trusted creators, and also analyzing the trends myself in my explore reels feed & private TikTok account! 

4. What are the best practices for small businesses to build and maintain a loyal following on social media?

Consistency. In your brand presence, recognition, posting cadence, personality.

You build and maintain a loyal following on social media by building the Know Like Trust factor, which is essential for building lasting loyalty. I think having an element of FUN also keeps a following coming back.

Great journal prompt: How can you infuse personality & humanize your brand to do this? 

5. What tips do you have for creating visually appealing content that stands out on social media feeds?

OOOOOH love me some visuals.

Each brand is so different and the visuals will vary greatly.

BUT. For carousels, bold/large text is proven to get more traction on the explore page. So play around on Canva with various ways to do that on-brand. Also, using high-quality images and videos makes a major difference.

Other best practices: maintain a consistent color palette and style and make sure your content is well-lit and clear.

Videos in poor lighting or with pool quality don’t really grab you in the first 2-3 seconds, which is a crucial period for engagement/reach.

6. What are some strategies for small businesses to increase their followers organically?

The goal here is increased visibility. More eyes = more chances to get seen/followed.

So first, up that posting frequency for both your feed & stories. This will become a lead gen system for you.

Next, find ways to get more eyes on your content via alternative methods: IRL Networking, IRL events, omnichannel marketing across different platforms.

Then, of course, no better way to get access to a new audience than by collaborating. I’d want to see you be a guest on podcasts, blogs, articles, do a reel collab with an adjacent industry, do an IG Live with another creator.

7. What inspired you to start your own social media marketing agency, and what was the biggest challenge you faced in the early days?

I’ve been playing business owner since I was really young, so I always knew I was going to own a business in some capacity. But we tried MANY things before landing on SMM. 

First was “Caroline’s Culinary Creations,” at 12. I immediately ordered custom business cards (obviously) and this sparked a lifelong love of branding and marketing. 

From there, I’ve had several side hustle ventures, from photography to dropshipping to Etsy stores to short term rental management…

I always knew I was going to own a business but the right path wasn’t clear until I was half way through my speech pathology Master’s program.

I was nannying on the side for a family in Utah and the mom was getting bigger on instagram. During nap time, I’d respond to her DMs and do some back-end work, which slowly grew into more platforms and her being my first client.

Expanded from there. All while keeping my full time job as a speech pathologist. Soon the client roster grew, my team grew, and here we are! Early day challenges would be “how the heck do I do this the best/most streamlined way possible?!?” since I had another job I was balancing. But I did an ungodly amount of YouTube school, hired a mentor, and am so proud of the systems we have set up now that allows me to travel full-time, do speech therapy online for my kiddos, AND run a multi-six figure agency with a team of 10. 🥳

8. How do you approach creating a tailored social media strategy for each client?

This is my favorite thing ever.

Of course, we have our systems and things we do for EVERY client – SMART goals, competitor analysis, industry research, audience research, etc. Some things are staples and necessary for every social strategy.

Where the fun part comes in is the content themes & the YOU-coded, personality-driven aspects. This is so incredibly tailored to each brand & influencer we do strategies with. This is their secret sauce, their North Star, how they will truly truly differentiate themselves from anyone else.

We don’t believe in bending over backwards to be appeasing algorithms, we believe in a humanized approach to content that’s authentic to YOU and drives conversations – because community & conversations lead seamlessly to conversions.  

9. What emerging social media platform/ trend most excites you?

IG and Pinterest are my faves always – but a trend I’m loving is getting people’s personalities at the FOREFRONT. The cookie-cutter, generic content we keep seeing has gotta goooooo.

10. Where do you see social media marketing in a couple years?

Tough to say! I usually like to play into the moment & prioritize platforms we OWN (email email email) but in a couple of years, I see social media marketing being more personalized to each user’s experience, AI-driven for SURE, with a bigger emphasis on community building. :)

Closing Thoughts

We learned A LOT from Caroline, especially about how important it is to personalise your brand, and avoid any generic content. Quality matters in this day.

You can check out Impact Media House’s work here.

We thank Caroline again for taking the time to answer our questions, and hope this interview was insightful for all.

Stay tuned for the next edition of our new Agency Spotlight series on Social Now Media’s blog.