That’s what you ever wanted to know

Q: What is your elevator pitch goes like this: Instantly turn small marketing agencies and freelancers into content creation geniuses on social networks. So how exactly can that work? Is PromoRepublic something like Harry Potter?

A: PromoRepublic is a service that helps freelancers and marketing agencies to create high-quality content for social networks. Our service provides a calendar of content ideas that helps in creating stunning social media posts based on holidays, trends, events and more. Content ideas are supported by the smartest library of templates in the world, which caters to a broad spectrum of industries, so you are able to choose those that fit you best. PromoRepublic’s primary customers are American small to mid-sized marketing agencies and freelance marketers that serve small businesses.

Q: Sounds nice, but at the same time a bit oversold. Do agencies really need PromoRepublic?

A: It's a huge pain for any content creator to generate enough ideas for engaging posts every day, as well as supporting those ideas with creative text and visuals. Sometimes pressure on marketers means that fresh content gives way to hackneyed or recycled posts in a desperate bid to fill the calendar. This results in a less reach, less engagement and, as a result, less effectiveness for customers.

PromoRepublic successfully solves this issue with our calendar of content ideas that provides a host of daily facts, events and other ideas to make your posts more engaging.

Q: Okay, and how exactly does PromoRepublic help marketing agencies and freelancers create content for their clients? Give me an example.

A: Imagine, that you have a client who owns a bakery and wants to promote his business via social networks. You can connect the bakery’s social media profiles to PromoRepublic and immediately receive suggested post templates, tailored for bakeries, created by agency-level designers and copywriters. You do not need Photoshop to customize visuals or insert your logo - there’s an insanely easy-to-use graphics editor. You do not need to spend hours matching photos and texts - it is done for you.

PromoRepublic has a smart suggestion engine that recommends to users what kind of post is optimal to publish on a given day and at what time. Content ideas suggestions are based on trend-spotting technology, data analysis and SoMe Marketing expertize.

We also have a partner program for agencies that helps them to start selling Social Media Marketing Services to their SMB clients and switch from a project to retainer based business model.

Q: But there are so many social media marketing automation platforms. Like the Hootsuites, Buffers and Hubspots of the world. Why do I need PromoRepublic?

A: You need content fuel to “drive” those marketing automation machines. For that you need to have extensive resources: designers, copywriters and full-time social media marketers. As a small agency owner or freelancer you don’t necessarily have those resources. So, you can use PromoRepublic’s templates library as a “content tank” for other marketing automation platforms.

To make it even easier for you to use PromoRepublic in parallel with Buffer, Hootsuite or HubSpot, we created native integrations with these services. Now there’s a way to post PromoRepublic’s thoughtful event and trend-driven content within your existing account on the social media marketing platform of your choice. All it takes is two clicks and you’re on your way to well-designed, on-point content that’s delivered to your Buffer, Hootsuite or HubSpot account.

Q: When was PromoRepublic launched and where is it based?

A: PromoRepublic was launched in 2013 by Valeriy Grabko, digital marketing expert with eight years of experience. First it was a platform for creating promotions and contests in social networks. Since that time PromoRepublic has completed four acceleration programs in four countries: Ukrainian EastLabs, Estonian Startup Wise Guys, Startup Chile and Finnish Startup Sauna .

Our team is globally distributed. Our startup’s main office is located in Helsinki, we have a full-blown R&D team that works in Kiev, and communication with US customers and partners goes through our office in Palo Alto.

Q: Have you already received investments?

A: In December 2015, the startup received USD $560,000 investment from Finnish investors Pekka Koskinen and Sampo Parkkinen, the Vendep fund, the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation Tekes.fi and and Ukrainian venture fund Digital Future. After this PromoRepublic launched on the US market.

Before gaining this most recent funding from Finnish and Ukrainian investors the project also received USD $140,000 pre-seed funding from Eastonegroup.com and a number of business angels including business modeling guru from Switzerland - David C. Lottenbach and Techstars Boston managing director Semyon Dukach.

Q: You are funded. That is great! Do you have any traction in the US market?

A: Yes, indeed! We have repositioned PromoRepublic and updated the product to fit the expectations of US customers. We created individual packages for marketing freelancers and team packages for agencies. Today, PromoRepublic is used by over ten thousand of paying US customers.

Q: That all sounds cool, but what’s next? What is your big hairy audacious goal?

A: We invest a lot into R&D. Our goal is to constantly innovate and improve technology that helps marketers create excellent social content. We create trends, search technologies and have added hashtag and trend monitoring to our suggestion engine.

As content creation is not limited by social networks, in future we will possibly add the capability to create high quality content for emails, blogs, YouTube and other channels.