What Happens After the Call: My Process from First Message to Live

Most people selling social media management stay vague about what actually happens once you say yes. Some of that is disorganisation. Some of it is deliberate, because a fuzzy process is harder to hold anyone to.

So here is mine, all of it, in order. If you decide it is not for you, at least you will have decided on the facts.

Step one: the free 20 minute call

You book it, or you message me and I send you a link. I aim to reply to enquiries within 24 hours.

There is no script and no pitch. I want to understand what you actually do, what work you want more of, what you have tried already and what went wrong with it. Most of that call is you talking.

At the end I will recommend one option, not a menu. That will be the one that fits what you told me, not the dearest one on the list. If I think you do not need a monthly package at all, I will say so and point you at a one-off service instead. That is a slightly odd way to run a sales call, but I would rather lose a sale than take money for something you do not need.

Nobody is asked to decide on the call.

Step two: the proposal and the agreement

I confirm the package, the term, what is included and the start date in writing. Email is fine for this.

Then you get a Services Agreement to sign electronically through Dropbox Sign. You tick your chosen term on it, so what you signed up for is written down and neither of us is relying on memory six weeks later.

On term, you have two options, and I will explain both rather than steering you:

If you bought a Social Media Audit from me in the last 30 days, the £99 you paid comes off the setup fee.

I am not going to pretend three months is short. It is a commitment and you should treat it as one. What I will not do is dress it up as anything other than what it is.

Once the agreement is signed and the first invoice is paid, we start. Not before payment clears, which I mention because it is the sort of thing people are too polite to ask about.

Step three: access, and why I will never ask for your password

This is the part that makes people nervous, and rightly so.

I do not want your password and I will not accept it if you offer it.

Access runs through Meta Business Manager, which is Meta's own permissions system. You grant me the specific access I need for your package and nothing more. It usually takes under five minutes and I will send you a step by step guide if you want one.

What that means in practice:

• Your Facebook Page and Instagram account remain yours. Not mine, not shared, yours.
• You can remove my access at any time, in seconds, without asking me.
• If we ever part ways, you keep everything. There is nothing for me to hand back because it was never mine to hold.
• If I am running your ads, ad spend goes directly from you to Meta. It does not pass through me.

If anyone managing your social media asks for your login details, that is a reason to stop and think. There is a proper way to do this and it takes five minutes.

Step four: the questionnaire and your material

Within 24 hours of the signed agreement and paid invoice, you get a welcome email, a welcome pack and a shared Google Drive folder.

Over the next day or two I need you to put a few things in it:

• Your logo, ideally a PNG or SVG with a transparent background
• Your brand colours, if you know the codes
• Any photos or video clips you already have of your work, team, van or premises
• The completed questionnaire
• Anything genuinely coming up in the next 30 days: an offer, a launch, a busy period

On photos and video: phone footage is fine. Real material from your business is more useful to me than the best stock library in the world. A slightly shaky clip of an actual job beats a polished photo of somebody else's.

Realistically this is about an hour of your time, mostly spent finding things.

Step five: profile audit, pillars and voice

Days two to three, I go through what you sent, audit your existing profiles properly, and come back with three things in writing:

• Your content pillars, which is just a plain way of saying the handful of things worth posting about
• The tone I think fits your business
• Anything on your profile that is costing you enquiries right now, and what I would change

You approve that before I build anything on top of it. If the direction is wrong, this is the cheap moment to say so.

Step six: your first content calendar

Days three to five, you get the first month's calendar: the posts, the captions, the visuals, laid out so you can see the whole month rather than approving things one at a time in a chat thread.

Your job here is narrow and I want to be clear about it. You are not expected to write, design or upload anything. You are checking that the business facts are right: the service, the area, the price if one is mentioned, whether that offer is genuinely still running.

Each package includes a set number of revisions per post, and extra rounds beyond that are £25 each. Grouped feedback in one go is faster and produces fewer mistakes than eleven separate messages across three apps.

The 48 hour rule, and what happens if you miss it

You have 48 hours to approve or come back with changes.

Here is what happens if you do not, because most people will not tell you this part:

At 24 hours you get a friendly nudge. At 48 hours you get one more message. After that, the piece of content that was waiting gets paused and moved to the next available slot. The rest of your calendar carries on as normal.

It does not get published anyway. Nothing is ever published without your sign-off, and there is no version of this where I decide your silence counts as a yes.

That is a deliberate choice and there is a cost to it. A delayed post is a small loss. Something going out under your business name that you never saw is a much bigger one, and much harder to undo. I would rather absorb the small loss.

If a busy month means you miss it repeatedly, I will ring you and ask what is making review difficult, rather than quietly letting your schedule fall apart.

Step seven: going live

Week two, your content starts publishing on the agreed platforms.

If your package includes community management, that begins too. I monitor comments and messages, reply within scope, and keep an eye out for anything that looks like a genuine enquiry.

What community management does not do is speak for you on the things only you can answer. Prices, availability, technical judgement, whether you can fit a job in before Christmas. When a conversation turns into a quote, I hand it to you.

Step eight: the end of month report

At the end of the month you get a report: reach, engagement, growth, profile visits, your best and worst performing content, and what I plan to change next month. The larger packages include a check-in call to talk through it.

Which is why I will ask you to do one small thing: when an enquiry comes in, ask where they found you, and write it down. It takes four seconds and it is the only thing that turns a social media report into a business one.

What stays with you throughout

• Ownership of your accounts and everything on them
• Final approval on every single post
• Quotes, prices, site visits and commercial decisions
• Accuracy of technical and business information
• Permission for anyone appearing in photos you supply

I work Monday to Friday, nine to five. Invoices go out on the 25th of the month before the month of service and are payable by the end of that month, so there are no surprises about when money moves.

How long all this takes

From signed agreement: welcome pack within 24 hours, your material over days one and two, audit and direction days two to three, first calendar days three to five, live in week two, first report at month end.

The main thing that slows it down is waiting for photos. If you have a folder of job pictures ready, we move quickly.

If that sounds like a process you could work with

That is the whole thing. No stage held back, no "we'll discuss that later".

You can compare the monthly packages and what each one includes, see every price in one place on my packages and pricing page , or look at Facebook and Instagram ads if that is the part you need. There is also more on why I run this as one person rather than an agency.

Frequently asked questions