Social Squib, a boutique digital marketing agency specializing in paid social media for high-end service providers, struggled to deliver the kind of measurable results that set agencies apart. Why? Too many tools that couldn’t deliver. Founder Anne Popolizio and social media manager Reyna Pizarro juggled fragmented tools with limited analytics, which made it practically impossible to prove ROI or make strategic recommendations based on solid data. After implementing Agorapulse’s comprehensive analytics and content reporting features, Anne and Reyna were able to transform their approach from reactive content creation to strategic analysis. Now, they could identify top-performing content types, adjust strategy mid-campaign, and deliver dramatic results like 68% Facebook engagement growth and 62% Instagram engagement growth for one client in just six weeks.
About Social Squib
Founded in 2016, Social Squib is a digital marketing agency that specializes in social media strategy for high-end service providers, non-profits, and event campaigns. The 2-10 person team focuses primarily on paid social media with organic social as a strategic extension.
Social Squib’s clients include businesses in:
- home decor
- design
- real estate
- triathlon coaching
- other service industries
Anne started the business after discovering her natural aptitude for marketing while working at sailing schools, where her strategic approach led to 30% growth in programming revenue two years in a row. Today, Social Squib’s team includes specialists like Reyna Pizarro, whose passion for organic social media helps take client strategies “way further than I ever could,” according to Anne.
The Challenge: Good Creative, Missing Strategy
When Social Squib was delivering creative content for clients, they had a fundamental problem: they couldn’t prove what was working or why. As Reyna explains:
“At the end of the day, we still have to look at the numbers and we have to see what is working the best to then keep driving the creative forward—it can’t just be pretty pictures and videos.”
The analytics challenge was particularly acute with their previous tools. Anne had experience with Hootsuite and Sprout Social, but each platform presented significant limitations. “I just remember being a little frustrated all the time and wanting to do things and they were just awkward to do,” Anne explains about her Sprout Social experience.
With Hootsuite’s point-based reporting system, “as soon as you added in analytics, they made such a jump price wise.” For an agency serving multiple clients, this meant either limiting reporting capabilities or facing exponential cost increases—neither option sustainable for growth.
But the deeper problem wasn’t just about tools. The bigger problem was about being unable to make strategic decisions that would demonstrate agency value. Anne had discovered that “accounts that have good organic get better paid results,” and was seeing clients bounce between paid and organic content, using organic profiles as “dynamic brochures.”
Without proper analytics and content performance data, Social Squib couldn’t optimize this behavior or prove the connection.
The frustration reached a breaking point when clients would question creative decisions.
“We’ve had situations where I’ll get feedback from a client and they’ll be like, I don’t like this. And what Reyna has created is totally spot on, like perfect on trend and the client is not reacting well to it,” Anne recalls. Without data to back up their creative decisions, those conversations became difficult to navigate.
The Journey: From Research to Strategic Revelation
Anne’s path to strategic transformation actually began in 2016 during her initial platform research. She discovered Agorapulse and made a prescient decision: “When we are big kids, when we put our big kid pants on, Agorapulse is going to be our software,” even though Social Squib was still “the size of my pinky nail at the time.”
The real transformation began at Social Media Marketing World 2017, when Anne met Emeric Ernoult, Agorapulse’s CEO. Despite being “nobody” with “like a client and a half,” Emeric provided a year-long account that became the foundation for Social Squib’s strategic evolution.
“It was everything for me,” Anne remembers.
Anne’s research had been correct:
Agorapulse offered the comprehensive analytics capabilities she needed at a sustainable price point. But more importantly, it offered something her previous tools hadn’t—the ability to turn social media data into strategic insights.
When Reyna joined the team in early 2023, she brought experience with platforms like Root Social, Later, and native posting, but quickly recognized Agorapulse’s strategic advantages. “It’s one of the only platforms that I’ve used that really digs into the analytics,” she says, which aligned perfectly with Social Squib’s evolution toward data-driven decision making.
The Transformation: Strategic Analysis Drives Dramatic Results
The most significant transformation came when Social Squib began using Agorapulse’s content reports to drive strategic decisions rather than simply reporting past performance.
The 6-week transformation
The breakthrough moment came with a new client account in February.
“It was mid-February when we were analyzing the content reports in Agorapulse for a new account,” Anne says. “The reports made it really easy to see that certain kinds of content were doing better than others and where the content opportunities were so we could quickly adjust the content strategy.”
This wasn’t just about identifying what worked. This pivotal moment was about rapid strategic pivots based on solid data.
“By the end of March, six weeks after doing the analysis, monthly organic engaged users on Facebook had increased by 68% and organic post engagements on Instagram had increased by 62% for the month.”
The key was the speed and clarity of the analysis. “By using the content reports in Agorapulse, we were able to easily identify which kinds of content were working the best for a client’s account, quickly adjust the content strategy, and increase organic engagement over 60% the following month on both Facebook and Instagram.”
From reactive to predictive
Anne learned to use data contextually rather than reactively: “I hate to make rash decisions… I never look at a number out of context… that’s always a big danger for people when you see a number and then you make these decisions without pulling back and looking at the bigger picture.”
This approach proved crucial during a recent analysis where initial numbers seemed alarming. “I looked at the January, February numbers compared to January. I was like, oh my Lord. Like we gotta shut this campaign off yesterday. But then I pulled back and looked at the last six months and I was like, oh, no, January was the anomaly.”
Strategic content decisions
The content reporting capabilities transformed how Social Squib approaches creative strategy. Anne now uses data to navigate client feedback: “Those are the times when I can go back into the data and be like, okay, how was the audience responding? And that will tell us if what’s trending is more in line with the audience or if the owner’s response is more in line with the audience.”
This data-backed approach has also informed cross-platform strategy: “Are there kinds of content that we want to lean into from paid and vice versa? Did something do well on paid and not do well in organic… we’re looking very closely at those content reports.”
Team coordination and customer service
The transformation extends beyond analytics to operational excellence. For one client, Social Squib used Agorapulse’s team features to coordinate customer service:
“[Agorapulse] allowed us to pull the customer service team in… we can monitor the comments and kick things over to them and we can see if they’ve responded.” This strategic coordination helped the client “improve their customer service management on social media for sure.”
Competitive intelligence for strategic positioning
Unexpectedly, Agorapulse’s competitor analysis became crucial for client relationships. “We did that once with a client and what we were able to see is they were crushing it compared to their competitors,” Anne recalls. “Without that competitor’s report, we never could have shown that to them, and then they couldn’t have shown that to their bosses. And there were some positive outcomes as a result.”
UTM tagging for attribution clarity
Perhaps most strategically important, automatic UTM tagging solved Social Squib’s attribution challenges. “That’s probably my favorite feature,” Anne says. “The tagging is just so clean and we don’t have to think about it…I can take human error out of it.”
This enables strategic measurement of social media’s role throughout the customer journey: “People bounce between organic and paid… you cannot know that if you’re not properly tagging and you have to make tagging easy, it has to be a no-brainer for your team.”
Lessons Learned and Unexpected Benefits
Strategic Analysis Requires Context
Anne learned that effective strategic analysis goes beyond individual metrics: “I can see all right, was last month a blip? I need to see a trend over time to understand.” This approach prevents reactive decisions that could harm long-term strategy.
Data drives creative excellence
Reyna discovered that analytics enhance rather than limit creativity:
“We have to look at the numbers and we have to see what is working the best to then keep driving the creative forward… but it can’t just be pretty pictures and videos and all of that. Like if that’s not working, then we have to pivot to what is working.”
Client retention through strategic value
The transformation from creative service provider to strategic partner changed client relationships fundamentally. “Our customers tend not to go anywhere… our customers stay with us for a long time,” Anne says. When agencies can deliver measurable results through strategic analysis, they become indispensable.
Cross-platform integration
Anne realized that strategic analysis reveals connections between paid and organic performance: “We can test it in paid and if we see trends in paid, we can test it in organic and they are often not the same.”
Social Squib’s Advice for Strategic Transformation
- For creative teams : Focus on how data enhances creativity rather than restricting it. “Agorapulse really digs into the analytics, and I think that at the end of the day… we still have to look at the numbers and we have to see what is working the best,” advises Reyna.
- For agency owners: Prioritize measurement capabilities that enable strategic decision-making. Anne emphasizes: “It’s a tool that’s going to let you easily assess how things are doing and then easily let social media fit into the greater marketing puzzle.”
- For marketing directors: Consider the attribution and measurement implications: “If organic social media is supporting the end conversion… you cannot know that if you’re not properly tagging.” Strategic measurement requires tools that make tracking “a no-brainer for your team.”
- For strategic growth: Remember that transformation takes both tools and mindset. As Anne learned, “When you know something’s on the chopping block… if you’re not properly tagging” you can’t demonstrate strategic value or protect successful programs.
From delivering 68% engagement growth in six weeks to building an agency where clients never leave, Social Squib’s transformation proves that strategic analysis doesn’t just improve reporting—it fundamentally changes what agencies can achieve for their clients.
