Social media management run as an operating system, not a posting habit
Consistency is the whole game in organic social, and consistency is an operations problem rather than a creative one. We run it as a system with named owners and defined turnaround times.
What is social media management?
Social Media Management is the ongoing operation of a brand's organic social channels: planning, content production, scheduling, community replies and reporting. It suits Australian businesses that need a consistent presence and a reliable response to comments and messages, but do not have the internal time or the range of skills to sustain it.
Get a fixed written quote- Typical timeline
- 3 to 4 weeks to onboard, then a monthly cycle
- What drives cost
- Depends on how many channels you run, how many assets you need each month, whether video production is included and how wide the response window is.
- Best for
- Brands needing steady presence and prompt replies in public
- You own
- Every channel, every asset and the full content archive
- Built with
- Content pillars, batch production, scheduling tools, response playbooks
Your handover
What a month of social media management actually contains
Businesses often picture social management as writing posts. Posting is perhaps a fifth of it. The month includes planning against what is actually happening in your business, gathering raw material from people who are busy doing their jobs, producing assets, writing captions that suit each platform rather than one caption pasted everywhere, scheduling, monitoring comments and messages daily, replying within agreed times, escalating the things that should not be answered by an agency, and reporting on what any of it produced.
- 01Channel audit and access consolidation
- 02Content pillars tied to real business activity
- 03Monthly content plan and approval cycle
- 04Batch produced assets in agreed volumes
- 05Platform specific captions and scheduling
- 06Community response playbook and escalation rules
- Daily monitoring within agreed response windows
- Monthly report on growth, enquiries and recurring questions
- Full content archive handed over in editable form
Being specific about that list matters because it is where expectations break down
Being specific about that list matters because it is where expectations break down. Most unhappy social relationships come from an unwritten assumption: the client thought responses were included overnight, or that video production was covered, or that the agency would somehow know a store had shut for renovations. We put the scope in writing, including response windows, what needs your approval, how many assets are produced and who supplies the raw material. Dull to negotiate, and it prevents nearly every argument that follows.
- Monthly plan built around real business activity, not generic content days
- Asset production in batches, with a stated volume per month
- Platform specific captions, not one caption reposted everywhere
- Daily monitoring of comments, mentions and direct messages
- Replies within an agreed response window on business days
- Escalation of anything clinical, legal, contractual or angry
Anything outside that gets escalated to you rather than answered by someone without the standing to answer it.
A content system beats a content calendar
A calendar tells you what goes out on Thursday. A system tells you where Thursday's post comes from. That distinction is why so many social programmes start strong and thin out by month four. The calendar was filled by an initial burst of enthusiasm, and once that ran out nobody had a repeatable source of raw material.
A clinic answers the same six patient questions weekly, so those become a pillar
So we build pillars tied to things your business does anyway. A construction company completes projects, so progress photography becomes a pillar with a simple capture routine for site staff. A clinic answers the same six patient questions weekly, so those become a pillar. A retailer receives new stock, so arrivals become a pillar. Then production is batched: one shoot or one recording session yields several weeks of assets, cut to the formats in your social media design system. The point is to stop relying on inspiration, because inspiration does not survive a busy quarter and the account goes quiet exactly when the business is doing well enough to be worth talking about.
How the engagement runs
How onboarding and the monthly cycle work
The first few weeks are setup rather than posting. We get proper access to your accounts, audit what is there, agree the pillars, build the response playbook and produce the first batch of assets. Starting to post before that is done produces a fortnight of generic content that does not represent you and that has to be lived with.
- 01Access and auditFull ownership of accounts confirmed, existing content and performance reviewed
- 02StrategyAudience, pillars, platform selection and what success will be measured on
- 03PlaybookResponse windows, standard replies, escalation rules and named contacts
- 04Capture routineHow photos, footage and stories reach us from your team without chasing
- 05Batch productionFirst month of assets produced and approved in one pass
- 06Monthly cyclePlan, approve, schedule, monitor, respond, report
- 07Quarterly reviewWhat is working, what to retire and what to test next
Two decisions on your side that keep the project moving
After that the cycle is predictable, and predictability is what makes it sustainable. You know when the plan arrives, when approvals are due and when reporting lands. The one thing we ask for is a monthly conversation with someone who knows what is happening in the business, because the best performing content almost always comes from information we could not have invented.
Community management is customer service in public
Comments and direct messages are not a marketing sideline. For a large share of Australian consumers, a message on social is now the first contact attempt, ahead of a phone call, and an unanswered one is visible to everyone else considering you. A page with three week old unanswered questions communicates something no amount of polished content can undo.
More on community management is customer service in public
We run community management against a defined response window on business days, with a documented set of replies for the questions that repeat: hours, location, parking, availability, pricing enquiries and delivery timing. Anything outside that gets escalated to you rather than answered by someone without the standing to answer it. Clinical questions, complaints with a legal edge, contractual disputes and anything about an incident go straight to a named person on your side. Where volume or risk is genuinely high, the escalation and crisis side becomes its own discipline, which we cover under social media reputation management.
Reporting a business owner can act on
Most social reports are a wall of impressions, reach and engagement rate. Those numbers describe the platform's behaviour more than yours, and no one has ever made a good decision from a five percent lift in reach. We report on a smaller set of things you can act on: what the audience grew by and where it came from, which content formats earned saves and shares, how many enquiries arrived through social, how quickly we responded and what the recurring questions were.
More on reporting a business owner can act on
That last item is often the most valuable output and the least expected. The questions people ask repeatedly in comments and messages are a direct read on what your website fails to explain. We feed them back as a list, because fixing the website page usually reduces the question volume and improves conversion at the same time. That is a better outcome than answering the same query two hundred times, and it typically points at work for content strategy rather than more posting.
When you should not outsource social
If your audience follows you for a specific person, outsourcing will flatten the thing they came for. A founder with a genuine voice, a tradesperson filming their own work, a chef talking about produce: these accounts work because they are unmistakably that person. An agency can support them with editing, scheduling, monitoring and structure, and should not try to write in their voice. We are happy to work that way, and we say so when it is the right shape.
The rest of the answer
There are two other cases where we advise against a full retainer. If you have no customer base yet, organic social is a slow way to find one, and paid social or search will get you there faster. And if you are only on social because you feel you should be, with no clear objective, you will resent the invoice by month three. We would rather scope a smaller engagement, perhaps setup, playbook and training so your team can run it, than sell a retainer that neither side is proud of.
How we scope it
Four ways to scope your Social Media Management project
We do not publish package prices, because the same brief can be a short build or a long one. These are the shapes the work usually takes. Tell us which one sounds like you and you will get a fixed written quote that spells out exactly what it covers.
Essentials
The core of it, scoped and quoted
Fixed written quote, agreed before work starts
- Channel audit and access consolidation
- Content pillars tied to real business activity
- Monthly content plan and approval cycle
Social Media Growth
The version most businesses need
Fixed written quote, agreed before work starts
- Everything in Essentials
- Batch produced assets in agreed volumes
- Platform specific captions and scheduling
- Community response playbook and escalation rules
Social Media Platform
The largest version, built around your operation
Fixed written quote, agreed before work starts
- Everything in Social Media Growth
- Daily monitoring within agreed response windows
- Monthly report on growth, enquiries and recurring questions
- Full content archive handed over in editable form
Social Media Care
Ongoing support once it is live
Rolling monthly, quoted in writing
- A named engineer rather than a ticket queue
- Patching, monitoring and a tested backup
- Changes and improvements worked through monthly
- Rolling, cancel with 30 days notice
These are shapes, not menus. Most quotes end up somewhere between two of them, and we will say so when the honest answer is the smallest one. Describe the problem and we will tell you which it is.
Questions buyers usually ask
Frequently asked questions
Working with us
How fast will you respond to comments and messages?
We agree a response window in writing before we start, usually within a few business hours during business days, with an option for extended cover where volume justifies it. Standard questions get answered from the playbook. Anything clinical, legal, contractual or serious is escalated to your named contact rather than answered by us, because those replies need someone with authority.
Can you work with a regulated business?
Yes, with the rules built into the playbook rather than checked afterwards. A practice advertising under AHPRA rules cannot use patient testimonials or before and after images in the way other businesses can, and comments containing testimonial content need managing on your page. NDIS providers and financial services each carry their own requirements. We agree the constraints during onboarding and route anything ambiguous to you.
Detail and edge cases
How long before social media management shows results?
Onboarding takes 3 to 4 weeks before regular posting begins, because access, pillars and the response playbook come first. Audience and engagement trends usually become readable around month three, and enquiry volume attributable to social takes longer again. Organic social compounds slowly. Anyone promising a transformation in six weeks is describing paid advertising rather than organic management.
What does social media management cost?
It depends on how many channels you run, how many assets you need each month, whether video production is included and how wide the response window is. Daily monitoring across four platforms with weekend cover is a very different scope from two platforms on business days. We define the scope precisely and send a fixed written quote so there is no ambiguity about what a month includes.
Do we own our accounts and the content you make?
Yes. Accounts stay registered to your business with you as the owner and us added as a manager you can remove at any time. Every asset is handed over as editable source files, and the full archive is yours. We never create accounts under our own credentials, which is a common problem we end up untangling for businesses leaving a previous agency.
What happens if we want to bring social in-house later?
Then we hand over a working system rather than a vacuum. You get the pillars, the playbook, the asset archive, the scheduling setup and a training session for whoever takes it on. We are also happy to move to a lighter arrangement, such as production and strategy while your team handles daily replies, which suits businesses that grow into the capability gradually.
Related services
Talk to us about running your social properly
Tell us which channels matter and what you want them to produce. We reply within one business day with a scope and a fixed written quote.