Member Article

An explosive 2021 for growing social agency

Birmingham-based Explode Social Media is celebrating its most successful year to date, moving to a plush city centre offer space, securing a host of clients, hiring senior management staff and launching a new website.

Despite being forced to follow work from home rules for much of the past 18 months, director Lindi Mngaza and her team have continued to push their business forward, seeing revenue rocket by 46%. They have also moved from their former office in the Jewellery Quarter to a new home right in the heart of Birmingham’s Colmore Business District.

Renowned for its young, talented and enthusiastic staff, Explode is one of the region’s fastest growing social media companies offering bespoke marketing and communication campaigns for leading UK brands. As an industry that has seen a real boost during the pandemic, Lindi says her agency has been right at the heart of things, helping boost vital online sales and raise awareness for clients as well as working with top influencers to create scroll-stopping content.

Key successes throughout the year include working with Parker Knoll on its Living Proof Sofas brand; the brief was to kickstart its social media and attract a new mass-market audience. In addition to boosting brand awareness for The Little Blanket Shop, which was founded by an NHS doctor and pilot husband and wife duo.

“We worked closely with Living Proof to create beautiful content, manage its social accounts and grow its channel-following amongst a target audience of families and pet lovers,” explains Lindi. “The results were certainly impressive – 8,000 new followers in just two months from the chosen demographic.

“For The Little Blanket Shop, we set about increasing sales and awareness with a combination of paid social advertising and an Instagram brand ambassador scheme. This saw a 1711% year on year increase in online store sessions, 216% increase in quarterly sales and our latest influencer marketing campaign provided a 1145% return on investment.”

As well as the move to new premises and updating its own online presence with a new-look website, Explode has also appointed Financial Director Mike Haliday, who brings his experience of working in a number of senior management roles for UK and international retail brands. It is also looking to recruit a new full-time account manager to help boost the current portfolio and bring the number of full-time staff to ten.

“It’s been good to look back and reflect on a really successful year for us all at Explode,” says Lindi. “Like every other business it has been a tough at times, but we can hold our heads high for coming through it together, notching up countless wins for our clients and taking on a new finance director to help steer us into the future. It’s great news too that we are also looking for another account manager to join our dynamic workforce and help manage our growing client roster, develop effective and long-lasting relationships with them and create innovative content.

“We have successfully adopted a flexible approach to hybrid working to cope with changing restrictions over the last two years; however, we feel at our most creative when working collaboratively together at our new home on Colmore Row, so for the second time in just 18 months we are set to increase office space there.”

Mike adds: “Since joining Explode Social Media it’s been a real privilege to work closely with Lindi to understand her future vision. My goal is to ensure I can devise successful strategies for the business and support Lindi to enable rapid growth and get us where we want to be. It’s going to be an exciting 2022 for us.”

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