Social Media Marketing That Builds Real Connections

This depends heavily on your starting point, your audience, and what you define as success. Typical outcomes in the first six to twelve months of proper management include: 2x to 5x growth in meaningful audience (not follower count, engaged audience), measurable referral traffic to your site, quantifiable lead or supporter growth if paid social is in scope, and improved content performance as we learn what works for your specific audience. We set specific benchmarks tied to your goals before starting so success is measurable, not anecdotal.

Probably fewer than you think. Most organizations spread themselves across four to five platforms and do none of them well. Our typical recommendation is one or two primary platforms where your audience is genuinely active, plus optional secondary platforms if capacity allows. For nonprofits and mission-driven organizations, that usually means some combination of Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, Facebook, or YouTube depending on audience. X, Threads, Bluesky, and Pinterest come up less often and usually don’t earn their time investment.

We do both, and for most organizations we strongly recommend including paid. Organic reach has declined so much on most platforms that organic-only programs often struggle to justify the time they consume. Paid social is where most of the measurable outcomes live (site traffic, conversions, list growth, donations). We scope engagements to include both where the budget and goals justify it, and we’re honest when they don’t.

On some platforms, functionally yes. Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube now heavily prioritize video in their algorithms. On others (LinkedIn, Facebook, Threads), video matters less. Our content strategy specifies what formats each platform needs to perform, and we scope production accordingly. If your team can’t sustain video production and hiring it out isn’t in budget, we’ll recommend focusing on platforms where non-video content still performs rather than producing video that doesn’t land.

Yes, within defined scope. Community management ranges from “monitor and flag” (we watch, you respond) to “full response handling” (we respond using agreed-upon voice and escalation rules). We recommend the level based on your organization’s sensitivity and comfort with outsourcing direct audience interaction. For some organizations (advocacy, services touching vulnerable populations, or any with high compliance requirements), we recommend keeping responses internal with our support on templates and guidelines.

Continuously. Social platforms release meaningful changes monthly. Our team tracks platform updates across the channels we manage and adjusts content strategy, posting patterns, and paid campaign structures as needed. This is built into the monthly management retainer. You don’t need to flag every platform announcement to us. That’s our job.

Most of our clients have limited internal capacity for social. That’s usually why they’re hiring us. Engagements can range from “full operation of the program” (we do everything including strategy, content, paid, community management, and reporting) to “production partnership” (we handle content creation, you maintain voice and community), depending on what your team has time to own. We scope honestly so the work your team has to do on their end is realistic.

Social media engagements typically run $3,500 to $12,000 per month on retainer, depending on scope, platforms covered, content volume, and whether paid social management is included. Paid ad spend is separate and depends on your organization’s budget and goals. Single-campaign engagements (one paid campaign, one product launch, one awareness push) are scoped separately and start at $5,000. Audits or strategy-only engagements typically run $6,000 to $15,000 as fixed-scope projects. We scope to match the goals and budget, and we’re straight with you if they don’t line up.