RAW Digital Group writes marketing and social media strategy for Detroit businesses: an audit, a 90-day plan and a walkthrough of what to post, where to spend and how to measure it, from a team with more than ten years building Detroit audiences.
Updated
Strategy that comes from doing, not theorizing
Plenty of agencies sell social media strategy. Very few have built an audience from nothing and kept it growing for a decade. RAW started in 2015 as photo walks for Detroit’s creatives and grew into a platform followed by more than 245,000 people, with about 46 million views a year and most of the audience right here in Metro Detroit. Every recommendation we make has been tested against that audience first.
That experience changes the advice. We know which formats Detroiters stop for, which posts they save and share, what makes someone drive across town to try a new place and how quickly a platform change can wipe out reach. We have lived through Instagram’s move to Reels, TikTok’s rise, Facebook’s shift to video and the arrival of AI search. Our guide to how we built our audience explains the principles.
Who we write strategy for
Most of our strategy clients are Detroit and Michigan businesses with a specific problem: a launch coming up, ad spend without results, a feed that stalled or a business that does not show up when customers search. Our plans draw on work we have done for restaurants and venues (restaurant marketing, venue marketing), developers and contractors (real estate marketing, construction marketing), manufacturers (manufacturing marketing) and destinations (destination marketing). Results from campaigns we ran include a Metro Detroit gym opening with more than 1,000 sign-ups, a Shinola timepiece campaign that sold out within hours, and a destination reel that passed 450,000 views.
The Audience Method
Our strategy work follows the same five steps we used to build our own audience. Every plan we write is organized around them, so you can see exactly how each recommendation was reached.
- Audience. Who actually buys from you, where they live and what they already follow. For most local businesses, that is a much smaller and more specific group than “everyone in Detroit.”
- Angle. The stories only your business can tell: the owner, the craft, the room, the neighborhood. This is what makes content worth watching instead of scrolling past.
- Formats. The two or three repeatable formats that carry those stories on the platforms your customers use, from short vertical video to aerial openers to carousels.
- Rhythm. A cadence your team or ours can keep for a year, built around your seasons, launches and slow months.
- Proof. The few numbers that tie social to revenue, reviewed monthly, with a clear rule for what to keep, cut and test next.
What we look at
A strategy engagement starts with the full picture, not just your Instagram grid:
- Your customers. Who buys, why they choose you and where they spend their time.
- Your content. What you post, how it performs and what it says about the business.
- Your competitors. What the businesses your customers compare you to are doing well, and where they are leaving room.
- Your paid spend. Where ad money goes, what it returns and what the creative is asking people to do.
- Your local visibility. Google Business Profile, reviews, listings and whether you appear when someone asks an AI tool for a recommendation. Our AI search guide covers why this matters now, and our AI search optimization (AEO) service fixes it.
What you get
A written plan with priorities in order, not a deck of generic best practices. It covers the two or three platforms that matter for your customers, the content pillars and formats that fit your business, a posting cadence your team can keep, a 90-day calendar, a paid social budget if one makes sense and the handful of numbers that will tell you it is working.
Run it yourself or have us run it
Some clients take the plan and run it in-house, with coaching sessions to build their team’s confidence on camera and in the comments. Others hand it to us: our crew shoots the content, manages the accounts and reports every month through our social media management service. Either way, you start with a clear plan. Book a strategy session.