Launched in 2020 to help brands unlock their potential on social media and accelerate growth, London-based agency System has recently expanded its client roster with the signing of Radisson Hotels.
The leading luxury hotel chain, which includes nine brands and 1,500 hotels in 95 countries, has teamed up with System’s team of social experts to champion a refreshed approach across Radisson Hotels’ portfolio, with an initial focus on Radisson, Radisson RED and Radisson Collection.
As part of the brief, a global creator network will be developed to help bring human stories to the brands’ social channels – with individual creators selected that resonate with the cultural territories of each brand.
And while System was founded by Keith Foggan to focus on the needs of SMEs and scale-ups looking to maximise their social media activity, Keith’s previous career experience with global brands leaves him in no doubt that System is ready to expand into the international brand market.
“It’s a reward for the team’s commitment and creativity throughout the pitch process that we’ve been appointed by a global brand,”
said Keith.
“We now have a great opportunity to inject some fresh social thinking into a category leader.
“We focused on smaller businesses in our early years because we started during the pandemic. I could see a lot of new businesses being created during that time as people were either furloughed or they’d lost their jobs and were turning their side hustles into something more commercial.
“Our approach is a little bit different because we do focus on return on investment. Most agencies will talk about impressions, interactions and followers, but to a smaller company what matters most is what you’re getting back from the investment in social media.
“Where the landscape has changed in social media agency is the need for experts throughout the process. Until now, all aspects of social media might have been looked after by one individual, but the requirement for quality content on the platforms these days means that each discipline needs a skilled touch – from videography and graphics to marketing skills – to ensure the message is doing what it needs to do – bring in new customers.
“There’s no point only using social media for brand awareness. It’s not going to be effective. You need to produce content that immediately identifies your brand, draws people in and encourages them to buy from you. If you’ve got a budget of £50k a year for social media, you have to get people through that funnel to see returns on what you spend.
“Social media is gradually moving away from being a place for entertainment, and more as a search function. If someone wants to cook something, they’re more likely to look on TikTok than Google these days. A good social media agency will allow you to tap into that, but at the same time provide a reminder that it is all still very much unregulated, meaning brands have to self-regulate and consider if what they are posting is appropriate. Users and platforms won’t do that, so the brands have to – there’s an element of responsibility and self-control when you’re using social media to promote yourself.”
As System expands, Keith is confident it will be in a position to succeed in a sector where there are still very few established players. He believes that System is well-positioned to react to the next stage of social media, whatever that might be.
“It’s impossible to know for sure what will come next, even looking a year to 18 months ahead, it’s difficult to know where we’ll be in that time,”
he said.
“AI is going to play a major part, I’m sure. And I think we will start to see functions move onto the platforms. So where social media currently takes you through to a website, I don’t think it will be long before customers will find what they want, buy it, leave a review, all on the platform itself.
“There is almost certainly going to be more personalisation of content, which on one hand is amazing – you’ll hit your target market, but it does mean people will only see things in their own echo chamber and one of the challenges will be to get out to a wider audience.
“We’re excited about the future – our goal is to be an expert, established agency in a busy and changing market with an all-round strategy and expertise to help our clients, whether they are start-ups or international brands.”
Find out more about System at https://system.social