Organic social that is planned rather than posted. I set the positioning and the content pillars, produce and schedule the short-form video and stills that carry them, answer the comments and messages that turn into enquiries, and report on what the account did for the business.
Social is the channel most businesses run without a brief — posting because the account exists, then judging it on numbers nobody can spend.
Most of the accounts I am asked to look at were not badly run. They were run without a brief. Someone decided the business ought to be on Instagram, an account was opened, and from that point the only question anyone asked was whether something had gone out this week. Posts get made because the calendar is empty rather than because there is anything to say. The grid ends up a mix of product shots, reposted quotes, public-holiday greetings and the occasional team photo — none of it wrong on its own, none of it adding up to a reason for a stranger to follow, remember or buy.
The second pattern is judging the account on numbers nobody can spend. Followers, likes and reach are easy to count and easy to inflate, which is precisely why they are the numbers most often reported back. They say very little about whether the account brought anyone into the business. Meanwhile the signals that do carry commercial meaning — saves and shares on the posts that explain what you sell, profile visits, link taps, and the messages that become an enquiry — go unmeasured, because nobody set them as the target before the first post went out.
Strip out the vanity and organic social comes down to four questions. Everything below exists to answer one of them, in language you can repeat to your team without needing me in the room.
/01
What the account is for
Deciding, before anything is scheduled, whether this channel exists to be found, to be remembered or to be messaged — because those three jobs produce very different content.
/02
What you will actually post
A small set of repeatable content pillars, so planning a month means filling known slots rather than starting from a blank page every single week.
/03
Who answers the replies
Comments and messages are where an interested stranger becomes a conversation. Who responds, how quickly and in what voice is decided before the volume arrives.
/04
How you will know it worked
Agreeing which signals count — saves, shares, profile visits, link taps, enquiries — and where each is read from, so the monthly report is a fact rather than a mood.
Approach
My Social Strategy and Approach
Nothing goes on your account that I could not justify to the person it is meant to reach.
There are things I will not do on your accounts. No bought followers, no engagement pods, no comment bots, and no content lifted from somewhere else and reposted without credit. A bought audience makes every subsequent number meaningless: reach collapses because the platform is showing your posts to accounts that will never engage, and you lose the ability to tell whether anything you publish is working. It is a purchase that destroys the one thing the account was for.
The strategy starts from the account's job rather than from a posting frequency. A brand people already recognise needs different content from one nobody has heard of. A service bought on trust needs different content from a product bought on impulse. Once the job is clear, positioning follows: what this account is about, who it speaks to, what it sounds like, and what it looks like scrolling past at speed. Everything after that is production against a brief instead of invention under deadline — which is also what makes a consistent cadence survivable.
Short-form vertical video does the heaviest lifting on every platform I work with, so the plan is built around it rather than treating it as an extra. That does not mean a studio production every week. It means a repeatable format: a hook worth stopping for in the first second, one idea delivered plainly, captions that work with the sound off, and an edit rhythm that holds attention — shot on a phone where the brand and the budget point that way. Stills, carousels and written posts still have jobs to do; they are simply no longer the whole plan. And the pace is stated honestly up front: an organic account is a build, and three to six months of consistent publishing is the horizon I plan against before the data says anything worth acting on.
The methodology, in six parts
Account and competitor audit
Reading what has already been published, what earned attention and what did not, then looking at how competitors and adjacent brands use the same platforms.
Positioning and content pillars
Three to five recurring themes the account owns, so every post has a home and the feed reads as one voice rather than a series of unrelated attempts.
Content calendar and grid
A monthly plan mapped to the pillars and approved before production starts, so nothing is written the night before it is due to go out.
Short-form video production
Vertical Reels and TikToks built from a repeatable format: a hook worth stopping for, one clear idea, captions for silent viewing and an edit that holds attention.
Community management
Comments and messages answered in the brand's voice, anything commercial routed to whoever can close it, and recurring questions fed back into the content plan.
Creator seeding and outreach
Working with micro-creators whose audience genuinely overlaps yours, briefed properly and disclosed properly, rather than paying for reach that goes nowhere.
The measurement layer underneath all of this is the same one I use on every channel: which signals define success, and where each one is sourced, is agreed before the work starts rather than afterwards. How an engagement actually runs — cadence, access, ownership of the accounts — is set out in about.
Fit
Who This Is For, and Who It Is Not
Organic social is the wrong answer for some businesses, and it is cheaper to establish that before a retainer starts than after one.
A good fit
Brands with something to show — a product, a space, a process, or a person willing to be on camera.
Owners who can commit to a consistent rhythm rather than a burst of posting around a launch.
Businesses where enquiries arrive by message, so the channel has a real route to revenue.
Teams able to approve a month of content in one sitting instead of debating it post by post.
Not a fit
Anyone whose goal is a follower count by a fixed date — that number is bought, not built.
Businesses that need enquiries this week; paid media answers that far faster than organic social.
Accounts where nobody can appear on camera and no footage of the work can be supplied.
Brands where every post needs committee sign-off, because the cadence will never survive it.
Scope
What's Included
Six groups of work. Which of them leads in a given month depends on what the audit turns up and what the reporting says afterwards.
01 — Direction
Strategy & positioning
Audit of the existing accounts, what has been published and what it earned
Competitor and category review across the platforms you are choosing between
Positioning, audience definition and tone of voice, written down and agreed
Three to five content pillars that every future post is planned against
02 — Planning
Content calendar & grid
Monthly visual content calendar built from the pillars and approved in advance
Grid curation, so the profile reads as one brand when a stranger lands on it
Launch and campaign moments planned around your own commercial calendar
Caption writing, hashtag sets and formatting appropriate to each platform
03 — Production
Short-form video & stills
Vertical Reel and TikTok editing from footage you supply or that I shoot with you
Hook writing and scripting for the opening seconds that decide whether anyone stays
On-screen captions and text treatment, because most of the feed is watched on mute
Static posts, carousels and story frames where the format suits the message better
04 — Publishing
Scheduling & platform care
Scheduling to the agreed cadence, with the queue visible to you before it publishes
Profile, bio and link setup so a new visitor can find the next step without asking
Story and highlight structure that keeps the genuinely useful material reachable
Platform housekeeping: alt text, tagging, location, formats and aspect ratios
05 — Community
Comments, messages & creators
Community management, with comments and replies answered in the brand's voice
Direct message handling, and anything commercial routed to you the same day
Micro-creator seeding and outreach, properly briefed and properly disclosed
Escalation notes for anything that needs a decision from you rather than a reply
06 — Measurement
Reporting & iteration
A monthly report against the signals agreed at the start, written in plain language
Post-level read of what earned saves, shares and profile visits, and what did not
The content plan adjusted from what the data showed rather than simply repeated
A review call where you can ask what any number in the report actually means
Process
How I Work With You on Social
Five phases, with the timings I plan against. They are expectations rather than promises.
An account with an existing library of footage moves differently from one starting with nothing — but you will always know which phase the work is in and what comes next.
/01
Audit & discovery
Week 1 – 2
I start with the business rather than the feed: what you sell, who buys it, how enquiries currently reach you, and what has already been tried on social. Then the accounts themselves — what has been published, which posts earned real attention, how the profile reads to a stranger, and what competitors and adjacent brands are doing on the same platforms. You finish this phase with a written picture of where the accounts stand, whether or not you take the work further.
/02
Positioning & pillars
Week 2 – 3
Findings become a brief. I write down what this account is for, who it speaks to, what it sounds like and what it looks like scrolling past at speed, then set the three to five content pillars everything will be planned against. The platform mix is decided here too, deliberately narrow. You review it, challenge it and approve it before anything is produced, so nothing gets built on an assumption you have not seen.
/03
First production cycle
Week 3 – 6
The heaviest stretch. The first month of content is planned, scripted, shot or edited from your footage, captioned and queued, with the profile, bio, links and highlights tidied at the same time. You see the calendar before anything publishes. Early posts are treated as a read on format and hook rather than as finished doctrine — what the first cycle teaches goes straight into the second.
/04
Publishing & community rhythm
Month 2+
The account settles into a cadence: content produced against the pillars, published to the agreed schedule, comments and messages answered inside the response window, and anything commercial handed to you the same day. Creator seeding starts here if it is in scope. This is the stretch that decides whether an account compounds or drifts, and the difference is almost always consistency rather than cleverness.
/05
Review & iteration
Monthly
Every month: a report on the agreed signals, a post-level read of what earned saves, shares and profile visits, and a call where I explain what changed, what it means and what I am doing differently next month. Formats that are working get more room, formats that are not get diagnosed rather than repeated, and the questions arriving in the messages become next month's content.
Investment
What a Social Engagement Costs
Quoted after the discovery conversation, because most of the cost of social is the cost of production.
What a social engagement costs depends on how much is being produced, on how many platforms, and on how much of it I am producing rather than editing from what you supply. An account publishing twice a week from your own footage is a different piece of work from one where every asset is scripted, shot and cut from scratch across three platforms. Rather than publish a figure that would fit almost nobody, I scope it and quote it after the discovery call. Where social runs alongside search or paid work, the published retainers are usually the starting point — see pricing for those; a social-only scope is quoted on its own.
What the retainer includes
Strategy, positioning and the content pillars the account is planned against
The monthly content calendar and captions, approved before anything publishes
Editing and scheduling within the agreed volume and number of platforms
Community management within the agreed response hours
Monthly reporting and a review call with me directly
What it does not include
Paid promotion or boosting budget, which is always separate from any fee
Creator and influencer fees, paid by you directly to the creator
Third-party scheduling, design or stock subscriptions billed in your own name
Full production shoots involving a crew, location or talent, quoted per project
I recommend a minimum of three months, because a shorter run tells you how one batch of content performed rather than whether the account is building. Judging organic social on thirty days rewards whoever posts the loudest rather than whoever posts the most useful thing. If at any point the honest read is that your budget would do more on another channel, I will say so rather than keep the retainer running.
Often enough to stay familiar, and never more often than you can sustain at a quality you are happy to be judged on. Cadence is set from what can actually be produced — how much footage exists, who can appear on camera, how quickly captions get approved — rather than from a number chosen because it sounds ambitious. A modest schedule held for six months will do more for a business than a heavy one abandoned in week five, because the platforms reward consistency and because a feed that visibly stops is worse than one that was never busy. The cadence is agreed at the planning stage and revised once there is evidence, not once it becomes inconvenient.
Can you guarantee follower growth?
No, and I would be careful with anyone who does. The platforms control distribution, change how it works without notice, and do not sell organic reach to anyone. The only way to guarantee a follower number is to buy one, and bought audiences actively damage the account: reach falls because your posts are being shown to people who will never engage, and every number after that becomes unreadable. What I commit to is a plan you have approved, content produced to it consistently, and honest reporting — including the months where the honest answer is that a format is not working.
Which platforms should I actually be on?
Fewer than you think. The right answer depends on what you sell and where your buyers already spend attention: Instagram and TikTok for anything visual, consumer or location-led; LinkedIn where the buyer is another business and the decision is considered. Being present on five platforms with a thin, copy-pasted presence usually performs worse than being genuinely good on one or two, because each platform has its own format conventions and its own reasons for showing a post to anyone. The audit settles this before the calendar is built, and it is a decision I revisit with evidence rather than by default.
Do you shoot the content, or do I?
Both arrangements work, and the scope says which one applies. The most common setup is that you supply raw footage — the product, the space, the work happening, someone on camera — against briefs I write, and I handle scripting, editing, captions, publishing and the community side. Where a brand cannot generate footage internally, shoots are arranged and quoted separately from the management fee, because a production day is a different kind of cost to a monthly retainer. What I will not do is fill a calendar with generic stock so the slots look full; content that could belong to any business does nothing for yours.
How long before social does anything for the business?
Plan against three to six months before the pattern in the data is worth reading. The first weeks are largely about establishing a format and finding which pillars land, and single posts are noisy — one video outperforming the rest tells you very little on its own. Some things move earlier: a profile rewritten so it explains what you sell, a link path that finally works, and faster replies to messages can change enquiry volume within the first month. But the compounding part, where an audience knows what to expect from you, is a build. If your situation genuinely needs demand this quarter, I will say so and point you at paid media instead.
Alongside social
Services That Work Well With Social
Organic social rarely works hardest on its own. These are the three it most often runs beside — the full list is on services.
Content Marketing
Social is a distribution channel for a point of view. Content marketing builds the substance underneath it, so the feed has something to draw on beyond the week's news.
Organic tells you which posts people genuinely respond to. Paid social puts budget behind the ones that already earned attention rather than guessing at new creative.
If it is not yet clear that social is where your constraint sits, diagnose it first. A strategy engagement decides which channels deserve budget, and in what order.
