I'm Mara Okonkwo — a one-woman social media consultant working with founder-led service businesses, independent creative studios, and author/expert personal brands. I've managed social for 48 clients since going independent in March 2019; I currently take 6 active retainer clients at a time, chosen carefully. No AI-generated captions, no stolen trend audio, no interns behind the keyboard — just me, in your voice, writing what you'd actually say if you had the three extra hours a day. Clients average +184% follower growth and a 3.4x engagement rate lift in their first 90 days.
Flat monthly retainers, no hidden overages, three-month minimum engagement. Every package includes Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn as standard; Pinterest and Threads add-on available.
Third-generation Jewish bakery, 89 years old, zero Instagram strategy. We started at 4,184 followers and 1.2% engagement. Twelve months later: 38,600 followers, 7.8% engagement, and a 3-month waitlist for their babka preorders. Owner Ruthie Lieferman-Valdez now films her own TikToks unprompted.
Took Dr. Finch-Garrido from a dormant 8,200-follower Instagram into a 248,000-follower multi-platform brand across IG, TikTok, LinkedIn, and YouTube Shorts in the 14 months leading up to his 2024 book launch. Book hit the NYT list at #3 in non-fiction its first week. 82% of pre-orders traced to social (measured via Bitly attribution + pixel).
Two-person candle studio, 1,084 followers, shopping at 2.1% Shopify conversion from social. Six months in: 24,200 followers, conversion rate up to 6.4%, and one IG reel drove $84,200 in 72 hours (their best month pre-engagement was $28,000 total). Founder Magdalena Petrovna-Hall now averages 4.2 reels/week herself.
25-minute Zoom. Free. I ask what's working, what's broken, what you're allergic to. You ask me anything. If we're a bad fit I tell you on the call and refer you to one of three consultants I trust (list ready).
Week 1-2. I audit your last 90 days across platforms, study your last 12 months of emails and long-form content for voice calibration, and deliver a 14-page strategy doc + 3-month content pillar map. You get a 60-min workshop call to approve.
Week 3. First batch of 12 posts (2 weeks' content) written, designed, and scheduled in your voice. You review in a shared Frame.io + Notion workspace. Edits within 24 hrs. No post goes live without your green tick.
Week 4 onward. Daily posting + community management. I replace underperforming formats within the first 2 weeks of data (not the first 6 months of "give it time"). Real-time dashboard, weekly written check-ins.
End of month 1, then every month. 60-minute video call walking through what worked, what didn't, and the next 30 days' plan. You keep every document, analytics report, and brand asset even after we end.
"Mara is the first social person I've worked with who read my book before writing a single caption. Every post sounds like me. My DMs don't go unanswered for 48 hours anymore — she's in there, in my voice, at 9:37 AM before I've even had coffee. I'll work with her until she retires or fires me."
"We tried three agencies before Mara. All three pitched us a 90-day plan by week 2. Mara spent week 2 in our bakery filming my grandmother kneading challah. That reel has 4.2M views. She GETS small businesses and she actually shows up."
"Our launch reel did $84K in sales in three days. But that's not even the best part — the best part is I finally have a calendar, a voice guide, and systems that outlast the contract. She built us a social team I can run myself if we ever part ways. That is INCREDIBLY rare in this industry."
No. I use AI to summarize research articles, transcribe your podcasts, and clean up my own rough drafts — like most writers do in 2026. But every caption that goes out on your account is drafted, revised, and sent by me. I've read every book you've written and every blog you've published. I know the words you'd never use. That's half the job.
After your contract minimum (3, 6, or 12 months depending on package), you can give 30 days written notice any time. Inside the minimum, you can pause for up to 8 weeks/year no penalty (parental leave, bereavement, medical, business sabbatical). I've had one client cancel in 6 years; I'll tell you on our fit call if I don't think we're the right match.
Direct-to-founder or direct-to-owner only. I've tried the agency-subcontracting route twice and the layers of approvals diluted the voice every time. If your founder/principal isn't willing to spend 2-3 hours with me in strategy every month, I'm not the right fit — and I'll say so.
Yes, both — but only in the Garden package at the quarterly level and the Grove package ongoing. I manage ad spend up to $10K/month in-house; above that I partner with a media-buying specialist (Olasubomi Karimi-Aderinto, ex-Anomaly) and brief you on the economics. For creator partnerships I have a sourced rolodex of 240+ vetted creators across niches and handle outreach, contracting, and deliverable management end-to-end.
Gambling, multi-level marketing, cryptocurrency speculation, payday lending, and any brand whose core business relies on dark-pattern conversion funnels. I also turn down clients whose founder I wouldn't have dinner with. Life is too short; I work with six people at a time.
They're yours. Always. You own every caption, every edited video, every strategy doc, every brand-voice guide. On offboarding I give you a clean handoff: exported Notion workspace, Frame.io archive, password manager access, and a 45-minute recorded walkthrough of every system I built. I build you a playbook, not a dependency.
I'm currently interviewing for three new retainer seats opening April through June 2026. If your calendar is clear-ish and we're a good fit, we can be making your first batch of posts by mid-May. If not, I'll refer you to one of three peer consultants I trust (I've done this 22 times in 6 years; it's a real referral network, not a blow-off). The 25-minute discovery call is free, camera-on, and I don't follow up with a sales email afterward — you either feel it's a fit or you don't.