How much does a social media strategy cost in London?

Most London brands invest £4,500 to £12,000 for an initial 12-month strategy project, then £1,200 to £3,500 per month for ongoing planning, content calendar and quarterly refresh. Production costs sit on top.

How long does the strategy phase take?

4 to 6 weeks from discovery kickoff to delivered strategy. Faster if customer research is already in place. Longer for enterprise brands with multiple stakeholder approvals.

Should we be on TikTok in 2026?

For consumer brands targeting under-45 buyers in the UK, yes. TikTok UK reached 23.6 million users in 2024 per Ofcom. B2B and over-55 audiences see weaker results. The honest answer depends on your audience.

How often should we post?

Posting cadence depends on platform and capacity. Most successful UK brands publish 3 to 5 times per week on Meta, 5 to 14 times per week on TikTok, 2 to 4 times per week on LinkedIn per HubSpot's 2024 social benchmark. Quality matters more than quantity.

Can we work with our existing in-house team?

Yes. Many retainers run as strategy plus calendar with the client team producing and publishing. The plan and the briefs are ours. Production is yours.

What is in the monthly content calendar?

Every row carries date, platform, format, pillar theme, KPI, owner and approval status. Live in Google Sheets, Notion or ClickUp depending on team preference.

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STRATEGY AND PLANNING

Social Media Strategy Agency London

Strategy decides which channels deserve your time and which do not. We map audience behaviour to channel, build a monthly content calendar around pillar themes, and tie every post to a business outcome. London brands, UK voice, 2026 platform realities.

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2 to 3 platforms

Focused mix beats everywhere

Quarterly refresh

Strategy stays current

Live calendar

Shared with the client

What is a social media strategy?

Dedote is a leading social media strategy agency in London, crafting data-led plans for UK brands in 2026. A social media strategy is the planning layer that decides which platforms a brand will be on, what it will publish on each, how often, in what voice and to what business outcome. For a London brand in 2026 it covers audience and persona research, channel selection, pillar themes, content calendar design, posting cadence, KPI selection and the quarterly refresh that keeps the plan honest. Strategy is the difference between social media as a megaphone and social media as a system.

47 percent

UK adults discovering brands via social per Ofcom 2024

2 to 3

Optimal platform count per UK brand

Quarterly

Strategy refresh cadence

What our social media strategy covers?

Audience and persona research

Personas built from real customer data, not generic templates. We pull audience insights from Meta Audience Insights, TikTok Creative Center, LinkedIn Sales Navigator and your existing CRM. Per Ofcom's 2024 Online Nation report, UK adults spend an average of 1 hour 49 minutes per day on social platforms, but distribution across age groups varies sharply. Personas capture jobs to be done, buying triggers, trusted creators and the platforms each segment actually uses.

Channel selection

Most brands try to be on every channel and end up good at none. We map the audience to the two or three channels where they pay attention and concentrate budget there. The decision is data-led: Statista's 2024 UK social usage data shows clear demographic skews (Meta and Pinterest skew older, TikTok and Snapchat skew under 35, LinkedIn skews professional). Channel choice follows the data, not the trend.

Pillar themes and content mix

Three to five content pillars per brand. Each pillar maps to a business goal (awareness, consideration, retention, sales). Pillars decide what gets produced and what does not. A typical mix might be 40 percent education, 30 percent product, 20 percent culture and 10 percent community per pillar weighting research from Sprout Social's 2024 Content Benchmark Report.

Monthly content calendar

A live calendar showing every post by date, platform, format, pillar and KPI. Shared with the client. Owned by the editor. Editable up to 5 days before publish, locked after. Calendar cadence ties to audience behaviour: Meta posts perform best at 10am and 7pm UK time per HubSpot's 2024 UK posting data, TikTok performs best at 6 to 9pm.

KPI selection and reporting

Every brand needs different KPIs. Awareness brands track reach, frequency and brand search lift. Performance brands track CPM, CPC, CPA and ROAS. Community brands track engagement rate, response time and sentiment. We define KPIs at strategy stage and report against them weekly. Vanity metrics (followers, likes) are reported but not optimised.

Quarterly strategy refresh

Social platforms change algorithm behaviour every quarter. Meta, TikTok and LinkedIn all reweight ranking signals routinely per their developer changelogs. We review platform changes, audience behaviour shifts and KPI performance quarterly. Strategy adjusted accordingly. Annual brand-level reviews tie the social strategy back to wider marketing goals.

How does our social strategy process work?

Discover

Audience research, current state audit, competitor scan. Discovery output is a one-page brief everyone signs off.

Plan

Channel mix decided. Pillars built. Content calendar populated. KPIs selected.

Activate

Calendar shipped to production team. Posting cadence begins. Community management aligned.

Refine

Monthly performance review. Quarterly strategy refresh. Annual brand-level review.

"Being on every channel usually means being good at none. The right answer is two or three platforms run properly."

Data-led channel choice

Statista and Ofcom data, not trend chasing.

Live calendar

Owned by the editor, shared with the client.

Quarterly refresh

Platforms change. The plan stays current.

Common questions about social strategy?

Sources

Ofcom, Online Nation 2024 Report, https://www.ofcom.org.uk
Statista, UK Social Media Usage by Age 2024, https://www.statista.com
Sprout Social, Content Benchmark Report 2024, https://sproutsocial.com
HubSpot, Social Media Benchmarks UK 2024, https://www.hubspot.com
Meta, TikTok and LinkedIn Developer Changelogs 2024-2026

Paid Social Influencer Marketing Community Management Creative Production Content Marketing London

Strategy first. Calendar second. Production third.

Find out which two or three platforms your London brand should focus on.

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