Experience digital with us.
Social Driver is a leading digital agency with in-house expertise for using social media, digital strategy, content and video, websites, and brand design to have an impact for a brighter future. Headquartered in Washington DC, with teams in Kansas City, Chicago, Detroit, and Bellingham, WA, our culture is focused on partnership, creativity, stewardship, collaboration, and service. That’s why clients choose to experience digital with us.
headquarters
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Focus
Portfolio
American Nurses Association, The Education Trust, Elizabeth Dole Foundation, Goodwill Industries International, Honda North America, Modern Military Association of America, Target Corporation
Galvanizing Support for College Education
The American Council on Education partnered with Social Driver on the #DoublePell digital advocacy campaign to galvanize voters and urge Congress to double the maximum Pell Grant. Working on a tight timeline, our team launched the #DoublePell visual brand and website. The result: More than 5,000 constituents contacted their members of Congress, sending a clear message about strong bipartisan support for higher education.
Elevating a Trusted Brand for Healthcare Providers
ZERO TO THREE, a global association working to give every baby and toddler a strong start in life, engaged Social Driver to create a cohesive digital platform for its HealthySteps program and revamp its website from top to bottom. The project included creating a new visual brand direction which is now fresh, distinctive, and better aligned to the program’s audience of pediatric primary care providers. And the new, mobile-friendly HealthySteps website has dramatically improved the experience across all devices, for HealthySteps practitioners and ZERO TO THREE staff alike.
Redesigning Public Welfare Foundation’s Website
Public Welfare Foundation is focusing on catalyzing a transformative approach to justice that is community-led, restorative, and racially just. While its work has never been more important, the foundation didn’t have a website that reflected its marketing strategy or vision for its brand.
By completely reorganizing its website around key message areas and calls to action, Social Driver enabled users to engage with grantee stories, book event space, apply for grants, and other important actions. Social Driver curated a visual brand to convey the vivid, gritty, and hopeful landscape of their work to address racial inequality and economic injustice.
Since the launch of the redesigned website, the pages viewed per session increased by 14%, average session duration increased by 13%, and overall bounce rate decreased by 4%. Through elevating Public Welfare Foundation’s brand and redesigning its website, users have become more engaged with its mission and work.
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Spreading Trustworthy Health Information
We worked with the American Academy of Family Physicians’ consumer-facing brand familydoctor.org designed to target users in their search journey as it relates to common ailments and symptoms. We ran Google Ads campaign focused on common symptoms of illnesses that were geared toward providing helpful information for users about possible causes.
The campaign achieved a 24% click-through-rate, which is 12 times the industry average, generating more conversions than any of familydoctor.org’s other previous efforts on Google Ads.
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Increasing DEI in Hiring
Grads of Life and Talent Rewire approached Social Driver wanting to increase diversity and inclusion in hiring by helping busy employers find resources that work for their companies. We built the Opportunity Navigator to help businesses understand how to incorporate Opportunity Employment practices and find resources.
The Opportunity Navigator walks employers through an interactive survey that tailors information to the user and allows them to take their results to upper management for implementation. The Opportunity Navigator has been embraced by employers. During its rollout, about 70% of the initial employers included in the launch started the survey.
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Showing Senior Living's Economic Impact
Argentum, the national association serving companies that own, operate, and support senior living communities in the US, set out to determine the economic impact of senior living communities across the nation.
We created a microsite, seniorlivingimpact.org, that includes data visualizations and an interactive map to showcase its impact. Users can sort by location, compare data among states, and filter data by economic impact, government revenue, jobs supported, and social responsibility. We also future-proofed the map so that staff can easily update the national and state-level data.
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ACE's Remember the Dreamers Campaign
The Protect Dreamers Higher Education Coalition, led by the American Council on Education (ACE), sought to end the political and legal limbo for America’s Dreamers. With a Supreme Court decision expected in weeks, the coalition needed to galvanize its members and networks in opposition to the Trump Administration’s attempt to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).
Social Driver launched a digital hub for the Remember the Dreamers campaign in a matter of weeks. We developed a compelling visual identity that helped to make a complex policy issue more accessible. An easy-to-navigate microsite, which integrated with VoterVoice and integrated social media sharing features, made it simple for users to contact Congress and post to social media.
An animated explainer video demystified DACA while highlighting Dreamers’ contributions to society and why they deserve to remain in the U.S. These digital assets were designed to educate the coalitions’ members and supporters and empower them to serve as advocates leading up to the Supreme Court ruling.
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Website Redesign to Elevate LGBTQ Candidates
Social Driver worked with Victory Fund, the only national organization dedicated to electing openly LGBTQ people to public office, to improve its digital strategy in order to raise the visibility of its work.
We took an audience-centric approach and built two new websites for Victory Fund and Victory Institute, each separate, but still under the same brand. We modernized the brand and selected and implemented a new CRM system to improve data use.
After the launch of the new websites in 2017, Victory Fund and Victory Institute had a record-setting election year with their candidates winning more positions than any year previous. The website has led to better organizing, fundraising, and data-driven operations. More at SocialDriver.com...
Branding a Merger for LGBTQ Military Organizations
In 2019, OutServe-SLDN and the American Military Partner Association (AMPA) were merging and sought Social Driver’s help to name and brand the new organization. The merger formed the nation’s largest non-profit organization dedicated to education, advocacy and support for LGBTQ service members, military spouses, veterans, family members and allies.
Our team created a new name for the organization that service members could use on merchandise in any environment and feel safe, with a tagline that made their mission clearer and claimed the LGBTQ space. The new brand is patriotic and clean, with a secondary energetic color palette that represents the LGBTQ aspect of the brand.
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Unifying Johns Hopkins Medicine's Social Brand
Johns Hopkins Medicine sought Social Driver’s help to align two of its subsidiary hospitals (Sibley Memorial and Suburban) under one brand on social media to better reach their target audiences across organizations.
Social Driver developed strategic recommendations and two micro-campaigns, inclusive of content and creative assets to better reach women and minorities.
The first micro-campaign, “Women, Let’s Be Real,” spoke to the different stages that women face when accessing healthcare — from discovering resources, to seeking preventative care, to receiving treatment. Social Driver developed written content with tone and voice and key messages that served the overall strategy for each channel. Content included still graphics, infographics, GIFs, and explainer videos to visually tell the story.
The second micro-campaign focused on Minority Health Month. Social Driver developed written content in line with the proposed channels strategy and included still graphics, Instagram story cards, infographics, and GIFs to tell the story in engaging ways.
Implementing Social Driver’s strategic recommendations and micro-campaigns created more consistency in brand voice and tone. Average engagements increased by 56% and new page likes increased by 54% on Sibley Memorial and Suburban hospitals’ social media channels in just a few months.
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Raising COPD Awareness With an Explainer Video
Many people don’t realize that chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), an inflammatory lung disease, can be related to a rare genetic condition referred to as alpha-1. The good news is that a test is available that determines whether a patient is at risk for genetic COPD, which allows doctors to get ahead in the treatment of the disease. The bad news is that most people are not aware of the test or that COPD can have a genetic cause.
Social Driver created an animated explainer video to educate people at risk for genetic COPD and their caregivers about the importance of testing. The video effectively translated this complex information into an easily digestible format, which could be used in meetings and across digital platforms.
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Driving Latino Voter Registration for UnidosUS
UnidosUS, which advocates as a nonpartisan voice for Latinos, partnered with Social Driver to increase voter registration within Hispanic communities in key states.
We used key audience research insights to inform our digital advertising campaign on YouTube. We also created powerful imagery inspired by well-known Latina artists like Frida Kahlo and made copy accessible in both English and Spanish.
By speaking directly to prospective Latino voters, our team drove more than six thousand young Latinx people to BecomeaVoter.org. Of the 320,000 thousand users that saw these ads, 82% were millennials. More at SocialDriver.com...
Reimagining the City Parks Alliance Website
City Parks Alliance, the only independent, nationwide membership organization solely dedicated to urban parks, wasn’t getting what they needed from their website. Members couldn’t find resources, their brand image felt dated and their ad hoc AMS was costing hundreds of hours of work a year.
Social Driver partnered with City Parks Alliance to take a wholesale look at their web presence. Starting at the very highest levels we reworked the site architecture, user experience, content strategy and integrated the site with their tech stack. The site was built with accessibility and mobile users in mind. This was done in parallel with a brand refresh, ensuring a clean, modern and usable site.
The redesigned website has attracted more unique visitors and increased the time they spend on the site.
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Improving The NEA Foundation’s SEO
The NEA Foundation, a public charity founded by educators to improve public education for all students, partnered with Social Driver to increase organic traffic to its website. The foundation faced some challenges, as it did not appear for related keywords and phrases, its social media channels were not optimized, and referral traffic was low.
Within one year of working with Social Driver, The NEA Foundation now appears in top positions on the first page of Google search results because their keyword clicks and impressions both rose by well over 100%. Additionally, the bounce rate decreased by 21%.
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Redesigning Fike’s Website to Lift Its Bottom Line
Fike, which works to eliminate catastrophic loss of life and assets for companies around the world, reached out to Social Driver to streamline its website experience. Fike wanted to make it easier to find products on its site and for its internal team to update.
We overhauled the site through an extensive UX process and introduced a site search/filter functionality to get users where they need to go faster.
Alongside a new sitemap, the site received a much needed facelift. Through clean type, large imagery and a bold use of color, we arrived at a new visual language that emphasizes quality, confidence and leadership.
Since Social Driver launched the new Fike.com in May 2019, there has been a significant increase in site web traffic and site performance including a spike in unique visitors and average session duration.
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GED Grad Day Campaign
Social Driver, in partnership with the GED Testing Service, launched the #GEDGradDay campaign to empower GED graduates to celebrate the accomplishment of earning their high school equivalency while also encouraging the next generation of students to open the door to their futures with the GED.
As part of this campaign, we collected pictures, videos, testimonials, and posts from real people whose lives had been changed by the GED. We then promoted these stories in branded videos and social media posts from official GED accounts.
Whereas the GED Testing Service once struggled to engage its dispersed graduate community, our inaugural GED Grad Day was a success and has become an annual virtual event.
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Spotlighting Hidden Heroes
The Elizabeth Dole Foundation reached out to us for help in creating a national movement to raise awareness and seek solutions for our nation’s more than 5.5 million military caregivers--our nation’s Hidden Heroes.
We built a website and an interactive map designed to reach post-September 11th military caregivers. We also created an online community and established a national registry for military caregivers so they could receive the camaraderie and support they need.
Hidden Heroes has grown to be the largest military caregiver community in the country and has inspired many supporters, including Campaign Chair Tom Hanks.
More at SocialDriver.com...
Breast Cancer Awareness Video
The American Academy of Family Physicians, which represents 129,000 physicians and medical students nationwide, partnered with Social Driver to promote Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
Social Driver created an animated video that explains how to minimize the risk factors associated with breast cancer. The video increased engagement and interaction on AAFP’s familydoctor.org, while giving life-saving information to their followers.
More at SocialDriver.com...
Reviews
the project
Digital Marketing Trainings for International Admin Agency
“Anthony was really good at finding ways to get everyone engaged with the materials.”
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I’m the head of digital at an international administrative agency.
What challenge were you trying to address with Social Driver?
We hired Social Driver to lead digital marketing training sessions.
What was the scope of their involvement?
Social Driver led two virtual training sessions through Microsoft Teams for the US network of our agency. The first training focused on three dimensions of people-centered brand strategy. Social Driver showed us previous clients who had yielded great engagement results from their storytelling techniques. The second was about mastering LinkedIn. Social Driver’s team taught us how to use our existing network to build out our messaging and how to use various LinkedIn features.
We worked directly with Anthony (Co-Founder & Chief Strategy Officer), who led our training after evaluating our priorities and what we wanted to convey to our network. We went back and forth on presentation drafts before he began each training.
What is the team composition?
I worked with Anthony, two teammates from Social Driver's finance team, and an administrative assistant.
How did you come to work with Social Driver?
We met Anthony at a previous engagement, and he told me about his interest in international affairs and his experience working with international communities.
How much have you invested with them?
We spent $10,000.
What is the status of this engagement?
Our engagement lasted from February–March 2022.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
The social driver team was really flexible to our needs — we weren’t able to do in-person meetings, so everything was done virtually. Anthony was really good at finding ways to get everyone engaged with the materials, even though we were in a virtual setting. Many teammates returned for the second training session, which is a testament to Social Driver’s work. I’ve also seen individuals from the training be more creative in their digital content and share more on LinkedIn. I’m 100% satisfied with Social Driver’s work; they did a great job.
How did Social Driver perform from a project management standpoint?
I provided Social Driver with our budget parameters, and they were able to give us everything we needed within it. Typically we communicate through email, phone calls, and Google Meet calls.
What did you find most impressive about them?
Social Driver’s ability to connect with the attendees really stood out to me. Often during training, instructors will talk off a sheet, but Social Driver did an excellent job tailoring the training to an international audience to ensure everyone was engaged.
Are there any areas they could improve?
I wish we could’ve had the training in-person, but Social Driver worked within the limits of a virtual training as best they could.
Do you have any advice for potential customers?
I’d advise customers to speak to Social Driver early and be clear about their goals for the training — customers should provide Social Driver with a list of desired outcomes.
the project
Video Production for Real Estate Company
"I give them high marks for listening and understanding what we were trying to produce."
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I’m the executive director of a nonprofit organization that provides affordable housing.
What challenge were you trying to address with Social Driver?
They provided video production services.
What was the scope of their involvement?
They provide two animated videos and an infographic. The videos were 90-seconds each. All of them were developed for internal and marketing purposes.
Social Driver handled every aspect of the videos: scriptwriting, audio, editing, mixing, voiceovers, and more.
What is the team composition?
There were at least 3–4 people involved, maybe up to half a dozen, including a project manager, a voiceover actor, and a scriptwriter. There was also someone doing the storyboarding and laying out the titles and the look of the video. Our final assigned resource was an account manager.
How did you come to work with Social Driver?
They’d done our website, but we hadn’t worked with them to upgrade it because their proposal wasn’t the most compelling one. They did have more bandwidth and video expertise, however, so we went with them again.
How much have you invested with them?
We’ve spent a bit over $100,000 with them.
What is the status of this engagement?
We worked together from October 2021–April 2022.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
We’re pleased with all the feedback on the video, as well as with the quality of the production. Social Driver did a very good job taking complicated subject matter and turning it into visuals. The videos will certainly help us in terms of explaining who we are.
How did Social Driver perform from a project management standpoint?
They did very well with the project management and used Asana. They didn’t allow for an alternate platform, so I trained one of my staff on it. We also had periodic meetings to go over product deliverables.
What did you find most impressive about them?
They were very good at communicating their process and laying out how they work. This allowed us to fully understand how we would move from concept to final product. Their discovery process was also very good, leading them to have a clear understanding of what we do. They really demystified the process.
Are there any areas they could improve?
I think that they were really good. There were a lot of touch points, and I can’t think of anything off the top of my head in terms of what they could do better. They were able to take and incorporate our feedback. I give them high marks for listening and understanding what we were trying to produce.
Do you have any advice for potential customers?
They were good and clear and understood what they were doing. They did very well in terms of the videos.
the project
Web Dev & Design for Early Childhood Nonprofit Organization
“They’re hyper-client-centric, so they always try to do what’s best for us.”
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I’m the chief communications officer at Zero to Three, a leading nonprofit organization focused on the health and well-being of babies and toddlers.
What challenge were you trying to address with Social Driver?
We’ve worked with Social Driver on several projects, including developing two websites for two of our programs.
What was the scope of their involvement?
Social Driver has helped us redesign the website of our program HealthySteps, a program that supports our work in pediatric settings across the country. This redesign's primary goal is to better showcase the breadth and depth of what our program offers to families and the impact it has on babies.
Social Driver has also been helping us build a website for our professional development programs, where we provide training to professionals in the early childhood field across many different disciplines.
Additionally, we’ve worked with them to build a very dynamic website for a policy report that we put out annually called State of Babies Yearbook. Given that the report is issued annually, they’ve helped us put out every edition since 2019. We’re currently working with Social Driver to launch the 2022 edition, which will be published in about a week.
This website is filled with data on how babies are faring in every state within the US, and it includes all types of well-being indicators.
In addition to the website design and development, they work on our social media, helping us drive engagement to our site through social media videos and ads to support the yearbook launch. They provide us with the creative assets (the videos and interactive ads), and our internal team places those across our different social media platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin.
Social Driver has developed the HealthySteps and the State of Babies Yearbook sites from scratch, whereas the professional development site has been a unique project. They haven’t developed it from scratch, but they’ve taken over the project after a different vendor wasn’t able to create a backend integration of that site with our e-commerce software. We haven’t launched this site yet, but we’re very close to doing it.
What is the team composition?
We’ve worked with various people from Social Driver across our different projects. We regularly work with 6–7 core team members, but other developers and designers have worked in the background as needed.
How did you come to work with Social Driver?
I’ve worked with Social Driver for several years across different organizations. Thus, I was already familiar with their work when I joined my current team, and we had had very successful collaborations. This time, I was very excited to bring them again for these larger projects.
How much have you invested with them?
We’ve invested over $500,000.
What is the status of this engagement?
I’ve worked with Social Driver since 2016 on other projects for other organizations, and our engagement is ongoing.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
The State of Babies Yearbook site is very dynamic, allowing users to really engage with the data. Additionally, Social Driver has brought their excellent technical development expertise to bring the professional development site where it needed to be.
How did Social Driver perform from a project management standpoint?
Social Driver does a great job at providing a project roadmap from the beginning, and they also provide us with tools to monitor and be aware of timelines and deadlines. They have very clear communication around timelines and deadlines.
Additionally, they’re extremely responsive to questions and concerns. I can always be heard and get my questions answered by anyone from their team, from the project manager and the account manager, all the way up to the company's president.
We normally communicate in three ways. When we’re actively working on a project, we have recurring check-in meetings. The second way we communicate is via Asana, where I can see the project timelines and any notes associated with the progress. Finally, the third way we communicate is via email, through which we send longer-form notes or urgent requests.
What did you find most impressive about them?
What makes Social Driver stand out from their competitors is that they focus upfront on understanding the project’s goals. They’re hyper-client-centric, so they always try to do what’s best for us. They’re also very flexible in their approach, which ultimately serves the client and helps achieve the set goals.
Are there any areas they could improve?
I don’t have any constructive feedback for Social Driver, but it would be good if they built more room for the unknown. Clients always have expectations, and those expectations can suddenly shift, particularly in the nonprofit sector.
Do you have any advice for potential customers?
Establish a thorough project scope upfront and keep track of timelines. Additionally, ensure that any critical milestones across the project timeline are also communicated upfront.
the project
Web Dev & Design for Nonprofit Advocacy Group
"They understood our company’s position and gave us the best product we deserved."
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I was the PR manager of NGLCC.
What challenge were you trying to address with Social Driver?
We needed someone to provide us with web development and design.
What was the scope of their involvement?
The web development project started with a discovery period where we learned about our challenges and needs. We went through interviews not only with the leadership, but with the staff and various audiences that the chamber was attuned to.
We also interfaced with community partners in the diversity and inclusion space, the Women’s Business Chamber, and the National Supplier Diversity Minority Chamber.
The website came in two phases, one was the redesign phase where they provided us with graphic design, content creation, SEO, and the development of a CMS.
The entire website was then developed through Drupal.
What is the team composition?
We worked directly with Anthony (Chief Strategy Officer & Co-Founder) and Thomas (Co-Founder & CEO).
How did you come to work with Social Driver?
Social Driver responded to a proposal we put out in the market.
How much have you invested with them?
We invested around $50,000.
What is the status of this engagement?
We worked together from April 2011–February 2014.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
Since partnering with Social Driver, we’ve increased our website engagement and unique visitors by 300% from 2012–2013.
How did Social Driver perform from a project management standpoint?
Anthony and Thomas were incredibly intuitive and effective leaders. They listen to their clients and were able to circumnavigate and rework some of our challenges.
We typically communicated through text, call, and email.
What did you find most impressive about them?
We were impressed with their team’s singular vision and how they provided us with incredible value through their services — they understood our company’s position and gave us the best product we deserved.
Are there any areas they could improve?
I don’t have any constructive feedback as we thoroughly enjoyed working with them.
Do you have any advice for potential customers?
Social Driver is highly flexible and innovative, so I would highly recommend working with them because they’re the leading edge of digital marketing.
the project
Communications Consulting for Civic & Social Research Center
“I was impressed with Social Driver’s presentation of their holistic plan of attack to improve engagement.”
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I’m the former director of communications at a civic and social impact applied research center.
What challenge were you trying to address with Social Driver?
My former company had a multi-year grant funding work focused on the future of higher education. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, our ability to engage with individuals in the higher education community also changed. So, we reached out to Social Driver to help us get more engagement with decision-makers in higher education, which include administrators and leadership at colleges and universities, nonprofits, state legislators, and federal regulators.
What was the scope of their involvement?
Social Driver provided my former company with communication strategy services using digital and video survey services. Those surveys were sent out to various stakeholders in the industry. Their team helped us reimage our communications and marketing strategy in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Social Driver delivered reports based on the online reports and questionnaires they conducted. They presented a living document and new strategies to reach our audience. Those strategies included email campaigns and changing to a hybrid storytelling website. Social Driver’s team also provided input for LinkedIn Showcases, newsletters, and the ilk. They also helped us determine how to reach media outlets that primarily work in higher education.
What is the team composition?
We worked with Anthony (Chief Strategy Officer & Co-Founder), Megan (Director of Communications), and a project manager.
How did you come to work with Social Driver?
Social Driver was recommended to my former company by an internal teammate. I believe their company also came up on a list of diverse suppliers that had several companies we’d worked with before.
How much have you invested with them?
I believe my former employer invested over $100,000 with Social Driver.
What is the status of this engagement?
My former company’s partnership with Social Driver began in March 2021, and it’s ongoing.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
I loved working with Social Driver. As a communications professional, it was nice to collaborate with a communications firm — it was validating to hear that they were facing similar challenges to our internal team. Social Driver delivered what they set out to do — they provided new ideas and strategies that transformed our communication strategy. However, I don’t have any specific metrics because I am no longer employed by the company that hired Social Driver.
How did Social Driver perform from a project management standpoint?
Social Driver had excellent project management through Asana. Typically, we communicated through email and video meetings.
What did you find most impressive about them?
I was impressed with Social Driver’s presentation of their holistic plan of attack to improve engagement. We were targeting external engagement from a specific audience, and Social Driver delivered concrete steps on how to do that. They showed me how to build relationships with our target audience. Social Driver were great communicators and always followed up with us to ask what else they could be doing to help us.
Are there any areas they could improve?
I may have something for Social Driver to improve if I was still working with my former employer and had specific metrics about their implementation performance. However, at this point, I have nothing for them to improve.
Do you have any advice for potential customers?
I’d advise future customers to have an internal consensus about their definition of terms. It’s essential for everyone to be on the same page on what building and telling a story means for their company.
the project
SMM for Events Company
''They were always innovative and flexible.''
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I’m an executive at an events company.
What challenge were you trying to address with Social Driver?
We wanted to create a social media campaign to speak to our local soccer audience to form a large coalition of people that see the opportunity to host a sporting event in our city.
What was the scope of their involvement?
Social Driver did social media marketing for us; they developed a plan to generate content and reach key audiences and stakeholders that would want to join our movement of bringing a large sporting event to our city. Their efforts also involved content development for our social media channels and influencer engagements that can be posted through Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. In addition to that, they also helped us accelerate photography and video material production.
What is the team composition?
We engaged with 3–4 members of their team, including an account manager, which was our main point of contact throughout the process.
How did you come to work with Social Driver?
We’ve worked with them in the past, and we chose them for this project because they had the strongest proposal for it.
What is the status of this engagement?
We worked together from July–October 2021.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
We reached our goals regarding engagement rates and percentage of follower growth — all those results exceeded our expectations for this project.
How did Social Driver perform from a project management standpoint?
Their team was very responsive and met with us to listen to our vision, create plans, schedule follow-up accounts, and send reports. In terms of tools, we used Zoom and email.
What did you find most impressive about them?
Their capability to adapt and understand our needs to deliver tailored solutions through their expertise was outstanding — they were always innovative and flexible.
Are there any areas they could improve?
I would’ve liked to see a quicker implementation of the plan early on in the project. Despite that, everything worked out fine.
Do you have any advice for potential customers?
Be as clear as possible with your initial vision and requirements; they can deliver a targeted proposal, but the more information you provide, the better work they’ll do.
the project
Rebranding & Web Design & Dev for Data Advocacy Nonprofit
"Social Driver's strength comes from listening to our needs and working to find creative solutions to match them."
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I'm the communications director at the Data Quality Campaign, a nonprofit advocacy organization. We advocate for changes in policy and practice on education data advocacy.
What challenge were you trying to address with Social Driver?
We hired Social Driver to help us ensure our website thoroughly explained our company to users. We've always had issues with site visitors assuming we work with data even though we're an education data advocacy organization.
What was the scope of their involvement?
First, Social Driver helped us refresh our brand. They helped us create an entirely new logo and developed creative assets for the website that followed our new branding guidelines and tied into the logo.
Then, Social Driver redesigned and developed our new website using our new branding guidelines. We provided our requirements and our recently updated strategic company plan. Social Driver used that information to build a site to help us achieve our strategic goals. They helped us change the language we use to explain our work and made templates to ensure our messaging was very direct — the direct language was meant to help us effectively communicate with site users. Social Driver's team also translated several key site pages into Spanish to ensure the site's accessibility.
What is the team composition?
We worked with a large team from Social Driver, which included several graphic designers, a project manager, and content development and accessibility teammates.
How did you come to work with Social Driver?
I've had a working relationship with Social Driver for almost a decade. They helped refresh a lasting website for my previous company and had already completed my current company's website. However, for this project, we did a complete RFP process. Social Driver's commitment to delivering a cohesive website that works across multiple platforms made it obvious that they were the firm we needed on this project.
Also, Social Driver's commitment to accessibility was terrific. We hadn't been able to achieve that before on our site, but Social Driver walked us through that process during the hiring process and showed us how we could make our site accessible while still ensuring it reflected our brand.
How much have you invested with them?
We invested $70,000–$80,000 with Social Driver for this project.
What is the status of this engagement?
This project with Social Driver was from March–November 2021. However, we're still engaged with them.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
I've worked on several website redesign projects over the years, and I've never experienced the kind of positive feedback that we've gotten from the new site. The new website is very visually different from our last one, and our partners are amazed at the new design. Additionally, I've given out Social Driver's information to several interested companies.
The new website from Social Driver feels more mature and reflects the company we are now, not the company we were. Social Driver's work has really helped us mature our brand so it reflects the scope of our offerings. The new website has a concrete focus on our organization's goals for the future, focusing on everything from early education to workforce development. We now use the images that Social Driver has added to our site for our social media — our branding is extremely cohesive.
How did Social Driver perform from a project management standpoint?
Social Driver assured us during the RFP processes that we'd never have to worry about falling behind on our timelines, and they were right. We had to adjust our timeline a few times, but it was clear why our changes were altering our project timeline. Their team was great about setting clear deadlines and communicated them well. We felt supported by Social Driver's project manager throughout the project, but still had access to individual team members to ask questions related to their piece of the project.
What did you find most impressive about them?
I'm always impressed by Social Driver's creativity and listening skills. It's easy for web developers to recommend only what they know, but Social Driver's strength comes from listening to our needs and working to find creative solutions to match them.
Are there any areas they could improve?
I have nothing for Social Driver to improve.
Do you have any advice for potential customers?
I'd advise customers to be clear about their objectives and communicate them clearly with Social Driver — they can't help customers succeed if they don't have all the information they require.
the project
Animated Video Production for Cancer Nonprofit
"They provided a tremendous amount of value and vision."
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I’m the senior director of communications for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Our goal is to end blood cancer and improve the quality of life for patients and their families. I work in the advocacy division, and we’re focused on advancing policies that make health care more accessible and affordable.
What challenge were you trying to address with Social Driver?
We hired Social Driver to create an animated explainer that could educate the public about the problems with junk insurance. Junk insurance is a type of health coverage that basically uses loopholes and leaves patients vulnerable to high medical bills.
What was the scope of their involvement?
Social Driver previously created an explainer video for us, but we needed a new one for a different topic and a different campaign. We intended for the video to be posted on our website and various social media platforms and to be used for a broader paid campaign. We also wanted to use it for internal communications to educate people within the organization and volunteer advocates on the issue.
We had done a ton of research and advocacy on the topic prior to approaching Social Driver. We provided them with our reports, findings, and some press releases about our position on the issue. We also gave them news coverage of patients who have been negatively impacted by junk insurance.
From there, they went into distilling all of the information into a creative medium. Their team made it informative and moving while keeping it simple and concise. They also helped us find and evaluate the right voiceover artists for the job.
What is the team composition?
We worked Emily (Project Manager), Gayle (Social & Digital Media Specialist), Cory (Senior Motion Graphic Designer), and Abbagail (Account Manager).
How did you come to work with Social Driver?
We had already engaged Social Driver for a previous animated video project, but we decided to continue to work with them because we had such a good experience. It was a no-brainer to come back to them again.
What is the status of this engagement?
We started this project in July–August 2021 and wrapped it up in early November 2021.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
Social Driver really came up with an amazing video that captured a wonky topic, especially one that doesn’t necessarily lend itself to a visual medium. They provided a tremendous amount of value and vision. As lobbyists, researchers, and communications people, we mostly operate on the written word, but they were able to work with the material we gave them and creatively visualize it.
How did Social Driver perform from a project management standpoint?
The team was really good from a project management standpoint. They met all of the deadlines and at some points even nudges us on our deadlines. It helped keep things moving along. We don’t use Asana regularly in our organization, but they were able to plug us into their platform, which worked great.
What did you find most impressive about them?
What we really liked about working with Social Driver is that we didn’t need to go into too much detail about what kind of visuals we wanted. We simply gave them as much information as they would need and they took over the creative side of the work on their own. They were just very easy to work with. We didn’t even have to go back to the drawing board a lot because they made sure to capture all of our requirements. It was a professional and very well-organized partnership.
Are there any areas they could improve?
They always ask me that, too, but there wasn’t anything they could’ve done differently.
Do you have any advice for potential customers?
Part of the reason we were so successful is because we provided Social Driver with so much material. I think it would do you good to provide them with a lot to work with because that helps them understand complicated topics and, in turn, create the right visuals for it.
This review was published on March 12, 2021
Ryan Holeywell
Senior Director of Comms., The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society
Nonprofit
1,001-5,000 Employees
Washington, DC
Confidential
Jan 2021 - Feb 2021
Project summary
A nonprofit engaged Social Driver for full-scale video production services to explain a public policy issue. After ideating, storyboarding, and scripting, the team produced a 90-second long animated video.
Feedback summary
Social Driver delivered an animated video that received compliments for its concise communication of a complex policy issue and its characters. By effectively managing the project, the team mitigated unnecessary oversight. They provided expertise and valuable guidance for the video’s production.
BACKGROUND
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I’m the senior director of communications for The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Our goal is to end blood cancer and improve the quality of life for patients and their families. I work in the advocacy division, and we’re focused on advancing policies that make health care more accessible and affordable.
OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE
What challenge were you trying to address with Social Driver?
We had them create our first animated explainer video. The video needed to concisely explain a complex policy issue and convey how the issue affects real people.
SOLUTION
What was the scope of their involvement?
Social Driver helped us make the video, soup to nuts. Their team talked about the issues with us and then developed a storyboard and script. They also helped us identify the video's music and voice-overs. It’s a 90-second video that’s only on our YouTube channel at the moment. However, we’ll use it as part of our advocacy campaign later this spring.
What is the team composition?
I worked most closely with Cory (Motion Graphics Producer) and Jonathan (Director of Project Management).
How did you come to work with Social Driver?
I found them because their founder hosted webinars with a group that I'm a member of, Public Relations Society of America. I kept the conversation going and asked to see their work. They sent samples of their previous work with nonprofits, which had a mix of styles and tones. We found a few projects that aligned with our vision.
What is the status of this engagement?
We worked on this project between January–February 2021.
RESULTS & FEEDBACK
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
Everyone internally loves it. We keep receiving feedback on how the video concisely and effectively makes its point. That’s hard to do. People also said the character that Social Driver created was compelling. One person said they liked how it reminded them of Schoolhouse Rock! The video has had great feedback all around.
How did Social Driver perform from a project management standpoint?
Our meetings were brief, so we never had a meeting with them that was longer than 20 minutes. Their team was organized, using Asana to keep the project on track. They always held up their end of the deal on deadlines. Their team was always early on deadlines. They communicated what they needed and when they needed it from us.
What did you find most impressive about them?
Social Driver didn’t require tons of feedback because they got it right the first time. They had amazing follow-through. When working with a contractor, it’s often necessary to stay on top of them to ensure they hit their marks. We didn’t have to do any of that with Social Driver. We set them loose. By staying on top of the project, Social Driver made our lives easy.
Are there any areas they could improve?
There is literally nothing they could do to improve.
Do you have any advice for potential customers?
I deferred to them as the experts throughout the project. I’m happy that I trusted them and didn’t micro-manage the project. Social Driver did a better job than if I told them exactly what to do.
STAR RATINGS
Overall rating: 5
Quality: 5
Cost: 5
Schedule: 5
Willing to refer: 5
the project
Group Merger Consulting for Healthcare Association
“They were great at focusing on the task at hand.”
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I was the former VP of marketing, communications, and member services for Children’s Hospital Association.
What challenge were you trying to address with Social Driver?
We were in the middle of a merger with another group. That group focused on advocacy while we focused on data and revenue, though we both served under Children’s Hospitals. In other words, we were two different communications, PR, and marketing teams within the same organization, so we had differing needs for social strategy.
Moreover, our groups were responsible for corporate and member relations, raising brand awareness for the association. Within that, we also needed advocacy and grassroots efforts. Simply put, we were blending two teams, and we needed an overarching strategy. Our teams also needed to define key roles and responsibilities while figuring out a good process for us to work together — that was when we met Social Driver.
What was the scope of their involvement?
We started working together by doing an audit of our organizations’ social properties. Social Driver dove deep into interviewing key players in our groups to understand our needs. Then, they facilitated several days' worth of work sessions to brainstorm around our overall strategy, approach, and tactics. Within that, they helped us define everyone’s roles, responsibilities, and measures of success. On top of that, they frequently met with us to measure success both qualitatively and quantitatively. The team also outlined project threats and developed influencer campaigns.
What is the team composition?
We worked with Anthony (Chief Strategy Officer & Founder) for setting our strategy and leading the process. A couple of people from his team also worked with us, including a project manager and social strategy manager.
How did you come to work with Social Driver?
We knew Social Driver through the group we were merging with, who knew the team in the grassroots advocacy arena.
How much have you invested with them?
We spent between $50,000–$75,000.
What is the status of this engagement?
We worked with them from September 2015–September 2016.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
We were successful in this project; our groups came together and defined everyone’s roles — everybody understood how we could work together in the process. We also saw high employee engagement and satisfaction around the merger. That was possible because we had the right success benchmarks.
How did Social Driver perform from a project management standpoint?
Social Driver’s project management was great. Any missed deadline was caused by scheduling problems on our end. Meanwhile, we communicated using traditional tools, such as shared documents. Social Driver may have also used a scheduling tool.
What did you find most impressive about them?
Social Driver was truly insightful in terms of understanding influencers and how social media and advocacies worked. They were great at focusing on the task at hand. Moreover, during the process, many people were worried about their jobs, so a lot of emotions were expressed. Fortunately, Social Driver was able to lift us above all that and stayed focused on the goals of the engagement.
Are there any areas they could improve?
No, there weren’t any. In fact, I wished we had the budget to keep on working with them.
Do you have any advice for potential customers?
Let Social Driver be the experts at what they do best. That way, they can figure out how organizations can execute their projects in a way that delivers results. In short, trust their expertise.
the project
User Personas & Social Media Research for Nonprofit Group
“Social Driver provided everything that we expected from them.”
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I’m the director of revenue innovation for Share Our Strength, the nonprofit behind the No Kid Hungry Campaign. Our mission is to end childhood hunger in America. We try to break down barriers that make it difficult for kids in the US to have access to food. On top of that, we also offer grants to people who need our support.
What challenge were you trying to address with Social Driver?
We launched an initiative called Friendsgiving for No Kid Hungry, where we search for people hosting Friendsgiving celebrations with friends and families. We try to turn those events into fundraising moments for the kids we served. We already had at least one year under our belt piloting this program when we realized we needed to learn more about our audience. Our team wanted to ensure we could reach more people to scale the initiative, so we needed a partner to help us research and inform our strategy.
What was the scope of their involvement?
Our engagement with Social Driver started with a thoughtful conversation around sharing what we already knew and did. That way, they wouldn’t come up with solutions that we already thought about. Talking about the history of the campaign, we identified that the key challenge for us was scalability. In that regard, the challenge also centered around using promotional content and social media to reach more people in our space.
Based on our discussions, Social Driver came up with a five-phased social media approach. They reviewed our target audience and identified growth opportunities. After that, they figured out which channels were most relevant to our campaigns and where the conversations were taking place. The team then came up with hashtags and keywords that we could bring into relevant conversations. From there, they analyzed our competitors’ social media practices. They also scrutinized trends and topics to determine the type of content that would perform best with our target audience.
After those analyses, Social Driver shared insights into different social media platforms, determining how we should talk to our audience on Facebook versus Twitter or Instagram. Moreover, we analyzed our audience’s online behavior. Our team already came up with two user personas, and the Social Driver team took them a step further. They dug deep into the personas’ behaviors and interests, making sure that we created engaging and relevant content. In the end, Social Driver delivered an intelligence research report. They also provided other strategic recommendations around how our campaign could move forward.
What is the team composition?
We worked with 4–5 people in most of our sessions. Our team had one main point of contact, but we had access to the whole team.
How much have you invested with them?
We spent between $10,000–$25,000.
What is the status of this engagement?
Our work lasted from April–November 2018.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
Social Driver helped us hone in on our target audience. They helped us better understand where we wanted to find people, how we wanted to talk to them, and what were the best channels to reach out to them. These insights were incredibly helpful to us.
I also appreciated that their leadership was a constant voice in our conversations, and they didn’t simply tell us to do things. I’ve had experience with other vendors where their founders and leaders would be present in the initial conversations, but we wouldn’t hear from them again after that. By contrast, Social Driver’s leaders were a continuous voice in our engagement. Their dynamic team provided a strategic vision to our project through their leadership — this was great.
Overall, our company felt that we gained value from the engagement. In terms of ROI, the insights they shared with our organization allowed us to raise more funds, making the consultation worth our investment.
How did Social Driver perform from a project management standpoint?
Social Driver’s project management was all positive. The team was highly professional, and it was great to work with them. We knew who played what role, so we also knew who to talk to about the project’s aspects. Moreover, we received various insights and feedback from people with different expertise, and we loved them. The communication was clear, and the person in charge kept the project moving. Overall, our experience was great and awesome.
What did you find most impressive about them?
While the entire team brought great value to the project, we were continuously grateful to have Anthony (Chief Strategy Officer & Co-Founder) provide his insights and feedback. He has a good understanding of trends, and he is always up to date with them. On top of that, we knew we had complete access to him and the rest of his team. In other words, we didn’t only have access to the team’s expertise; we also worked with someone with a wealth of knowledge.
Are there any areas they could improve?
No, there weren’t any. Social Driver provided everything that we expected from them.
Do you have any advice for potential customers?
Don’t be afraid to ask questions to get some clarity. The team is committed to make sure they understand what challenges you may be facing and are thoughtful in articulating a scope of work that may help solve the challenge; the leadership is there, so ask a lot of questions if you want to make sure you’re investing in things the right way. Overall, taking the time to ensure you’re on the same page is crucial.
For context, I’ve had other consulting relationships where the results weren’t what I hoped for; I thought we were on the same page, but we weren’t.