Today we’d like to introduce you to Megan Van Groll.
Megan, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Like everyone who started working in social media before there were degree programs for it, my path to the field was unconventional. My whole life, I’ve been passionate about writing and painting, and I knew from an early age that I would be an artist. I earned a BFA in Drawing and Painting and have been a travel blogger since 2012.
I’ve always been fascinated, though, by social media and the way technology has rapidly, irrevocably changed the way we interact with each other. When I moved to Dallas from Austin in 2011, I turned that fascination into a career in digital marketing. In 2013, I joined The Richards Group as a social strategist and had the opportunity to work on advertising campaigns of a national and global scale. I later left to lead a creative team at a travel technology corporation. And since 2018, I’ve been on my own as a social media strategist and consultant, working directly with clients in the Dallas area.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
My business began, like so many, after a layoff. That sudden freedom was a gift: it gave me the opportunity to finally create my own path in a way that’s difficult to do when you’re punching in for someone else day after day. It also gave me the fire in my belly I needed to make this thing work.
The real challenge came later when I realized that I couldn’t keep flying solo if I wanted to continue serving my clients at the level I wanted to as I grew. Bringing on contractors was the first step, and I did that fairly quickly. But taking the leap to building something bigger than yourself is another matter. You have to decide: if it’s not just me anymore, who are we to become? What am I building, and what do we stand for? Who do we want to serve, and how will we do that in a way that’s uniquely valuable?
Making those decisions, including the renaming and rebranding of my agency to Evoke + Engage, required me to step more fully into a leadership role in my business. While I’d always wanted to be my own boss, actually getting there was a bit of an accident – so it was a bit like building the car while you drive it.
Please tell us about Evoke + Engage. What should we know?
We’re a social media agency focused on creative brand storytelling and rooted deeply in strategy. We create campaigns and content and we manage social media for our clients, but we do so with a strategic, consultative approach.
Every new client relationship begins with the creation of a Social Strategy Playbook™, which is a highly custom, actionable roadmap for connecting with your audiences on social media and reaching your business and marketing goals online. It ensures that everything we do for a client on social is connected to a larger goal and that what we’re measuring and reporting on actually matters.
In the end, you will be able to physically hold that plan in your hand as the final Playbook comes printed and bound. It’s also something that can be handed off to your team if you already have resources in place – or it will become the foundation of our work together if we’ll be the ones bringing your strategy to life.
In my experience, no one else is really offering such a comprehensive and uniquely packaged strategic foundation for social media at the investment level our smaller, more nimble operation requires. The Social Strategy Playbook™ is a high-touch consulting project led by an experienced strategist and starts at $8,995. Larger agencies will typically struggle to deliver something similar for less than $30,000.
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
Being equally right and left-brained has served me well in a field that combines the written and visual. It means I can both create a detailed, comprehensive strategy and bring it to life creatively.
My background in fine art also has some unexpected advantages in a field where empathy is so critical for success. Artists are known for being curious and sensitive. Those traits help me create content that actually connects emotionally with its intended audience.
Pricing:
- Social Strategy Playbook™ starts at $8,995
- Monthly Social Media Packages start around $1,900 per month
Contact Info:
- Website: www.evokeengage.com
- Email: hello@evokeengage.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/evokeengage
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/evokeengage
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/evokeengage
- Other: www.linkedin.com/in/meganvangroll
Image Credit:
Megan Van Groll
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