Parvessh Agarwal
Founder & CEO
An entrepreneur at heart. He links business analysis, strategy, clear goals and ROI to practical technology.
LinkedIn →Hire social media managers
who run your channels for business results.
A dedicated social media manager, or a small team, who treats each channel as a place your buyers spend time. Each one is vetted on real content calendars before they see yours. They work inside your brand guidelines and stand-ups. You can scale up or down each month without a hiring cycle. You meet the person who would run your channels before you sign anything.
Interview before signing · Scale monthly
14-day trial
Try before you commit
Start Your 14-Day Risk-Free Trial
Work together on a real brief for up to 14 days, then decide whether to scale.
What you get
Hiring a social media manager through PixelCrayons gets you a vetted organic social specialist working in your team. They plan your content calendar, make posts for each platform and reply to your community. They work towards sales or retention goals, not follower counts. A named coordinator and escalation contact back them. You meet the manager first and scale monthly.
- Vetted on live content calendarsEvery specialist has run live content calendars to our delivery standards before yours.
- Cover when a channel cannot go quietA named coordinator, an escalation contact and a named second specialist who knows your channels.
- Working inside your teamYour Slack, your stand-ups, your asset library and your brand guidelines.
Our work
See what we've built
and the results it brought.
Real projects for real clients, with results we can show.
2004
Established
500+
Agencies served
4,500+
Projects delivered
340%
Revenue growth · 7 months
eCommerce
+127%
Organic traffic · 5 months
SaaS
85%
Faster delivery · backlog cleared
via agency partner
Technologies we work with
- Commerce and web
- Shopify
- WooCommerce
- Magento
- WordPress
- Webflow
- Next.js
- Marketing
- Google Ads
- Meta Ads
- GA4
- Klaviyo
- Cloud
- AWS
- Microsoft Azure
- Google Cloud
- AI models
- OpenAI
- Anthropic
- Google Gemini
- Build and deploy
- Docker
- Kubernetes
- Terraform
- GitHub Actions
- CRM and automation
- HubSpot
- Salesforce
- Zapier
- n8n
Product names and marks are trademarks of their owners. Naming a technology means our teams build with it. It does not mean a partnership, certification or endorsement.
Monthly rate for this hire
From $2,000per month, 160 hoursSenior specialists from $4,000, quoted per person.
Direct prices for brands and companies buying for themselves.
What they cover
Social media skills
that support your business goals.
This is more than someone who knows a scheduling tool. Their job is to make each channel useful to your business. They show what it is for, what it is doing, and the proof for both.
Content for each platform
- Short-form video: writing, filming and editing for the feed it will run in
- Content made for each channel: a LinkedIn post is not a resized Instagram carousel
- Content calendars and a steady posting rhythm that holds through a busy quarter
- Copywriting in your brand voice, adapted to how people read on each platform
- Turning one piece of source content into several formats without it feeling recycled
Community and growth
- Community management: quick, on-brand replies to comments, DMs and mentions
- Organic growth tactics based on how each platform works today, not last year's playbook
- Influencer and user-generated content (UGC): briefing, usage rights and fitting outside voices to your brand
- Social listening to spot a conversation worth joining or a problem worth flagging early
- Crisis triage: knowing what needs a human reply now and what can wait in the queue
Business results and reporting
- Measuring against business results such as sales leads, customer retention and site traffic, not vanity metrics alone
- Working with your brand and design team so every post looks like it belongs to you
- Honest expectations about what organic reach can and cannot do on its own
- Clear reports that separate what moved the number from what did not
- Choosing channels: fewer platforms done well rather than every platform done thinly
In practice
What a social media manager
does beyond posting.
Publishing is the part you see. Most of the week is planning, listening and deciding what not to post.
What a typical week looks like
Scheduling posts takes less time than people think. Most of the week goes on planning the next calendar around campaigns and launches. The manager also briefs or shoots video and writes copy for each platform. Every day, they work through comments, DMs and mentions. They also look at what happened. Which posts brought people to the site, which drew buyer questions, and which drew nothing? Then they adjust. A good manager also spends time in your sales and support channels. The questions customers ask there make better content than any trend report. They keep a running list of ideas too, so a quiet week still has something worth posting.
How to judge a candidate
Show them a few recent posts from your own feed and ask what they would change. Strong candidates talk about the audience and the purpose of each post, not just the design. Ask for a calendar they ran through a busy period and what they dropped to keep it going. Ask how they would reply to an angry customer with a real complaint. Then ask which platform they would stop posting on for your brand. A candidate who wants to be everywhere has usually never had to show what each channel is for.
What to have ready before day one
Social media work stalls without access and approvals. Give the manager admin or editor rights on each account through the platforms' business tools, not a shared password. Share your brand guidelines, notes on your tone of voice, and an asset library that is easy to search. Agree who approves posts and how quickly. A manager who waits days for sign-off cannot respond to anything current. Decide in advance what they may reply to alone and what goes to support, legal or leadership. Tell them early about launches and events. A short list of topics to avoid saves an awkward correction later.
When this is the wrong hire
If you need paid social campaigns run against a budget, that is performance marketing. It is a different skill with different reporting. If your product has no clear audience yet, the manager will make content with no target. The results will show it. A manager cannot replace a customer support team either. If most of your comments are complaints, fix the support route first. And one person cannot run every platform well. Pick the channels your buyers use, and let the manager do fewer of them well.
How it works
How hiring works,
from brief to first day.
Start
Brief and a call
We sign an NDA and you tell us about your channels, your brand voice and the gap.
Once the brief is complete
Proposal and interview
We confirm when your proposal will arrive and put forward the specialist whose track record fits. You interview the manager who would run your calendar before anything is signed.
Your decision
You sign off
You confirm the scope, the payment and the access we need. Nothing starts before this.
Typically 2 to 3 business days later
The specialist starts
They read your brand guidelines, connect your channels and join your stand-ups.
Every month
Scale up or down
Add a second specialist when your channel list or content volume grows. Step down when it does not. Changes happen monthly, so you can add or drop publishing capacity without a hiring decision.
You make requests, give approvals and see the weekly review in your Prism workspace. Each decision is written down with the result it was meant to bring. See how Prism runs the work →
Get a Proposal
Meet the people who will do the work before you sign
Why through us
Why hire through us:
the manager and the reporting behind them.
Hiring a specialist on your own gets you their content skills. Hiring through a company that delivers this work every day adds reporting on business results. That keeps each channel honest about what it is doing for you.
Vetted on live content calendars
Every specialist in our team has run live content calendars before yours. Each calendar met our own delivery standards. It was reviewed weekly against the same reporting standard your channels will get. Anyone can put together a portfolio of pretty posts. We would rather see a calendar that kept going through a busy stretch. Then we ask what was cut to keep it.
Cover when a channel cannot go quiet
Your social media manager has a named coordinator, an escalation contact and a named second specialist behind them. The second specialist is briefed on your channels from day one. They follow the content calendar and community threads as they run. If the first specialist is on leave or moves on, the second takes over community replies without a slow start. A lone freelancer cannot offer this, and an in-house hire needs a whole team to cover it. You get a manager and the publishing support behind them.
Working inside your team
Your Slack, your stand-ups, your asset library, your brand guidelines. Dedicated means working the way you already work. Content is not dropped into a shared folder for someone else to schedule.
Quality checks you can see
You get a weekly written review in Prism, tied to the results that matter to your business. You can see the content calendar before anything goes out. You also get plain calls on what is working and what is not. If you are ever unsure what the retainer covers, the calendar and weekly notes make it clear.
Side by side
Hiring on your own,
compared with hiring through us.
A full-time in-house hire is worth it once social media is a permanent, central job for you. We will tell you plainly when that is. This page covers every other case.
| Hiring it yourself | Through PixelCrayons | |
|---|---|---|
| Time to a working specialist | A full recruiting cycle: sourcing, interviews, notice periods and onboarding | Eligible engagements can typically start within two to three business days after scope, payment and required access are confirmed |
| Vetting | CV screening and interviews: how they write in your brand voice only shows after they start | A track record on real content calendars, held to our own standards and reviewed weekly |
| Management work | All yours: goals, reviews, career growth and leave cover | A named PM and escalation path are included; you review the content calendar instead of managing a hire |
| Scaling | A new hiring cycle each way: months to grow, severance to shrink | Resize monthly: add a specialist when your channel list grows, step down when it does not |
| Risk when it doesn't work | A wrong hire slows you down until it is spotted, then ends in a difficult exit | If the fit is wrong, we propose someone else; the content calendar and brand notes pass on with the handover |
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Who is accountable
The people responsible
for your work.
Saundaraya Gupta
Technical Manager
Brings technical work, client updates and project management together, so work moves smoothly from brief to launch.
LinkedIn →Every engagement
A named coordinator and escalation contact
Know who coordinates your engagement, who owns the work and how to escalate an issue.
All engagements. Roles may be combined and vary with your engagement.
Before you sign
Our commitments
Each one says where it applies and links to its full terms.
14-Day Risk-Free Trial
For eligible managed specialists. Up to 14 calendar days or 80 logged working hours, whichever comes first. End within the trial and pay nothing for eligible trial hours. Continue beyond it and those hours are billed at the agreed rate. Unpaid trial work remains ours if you stop.
Eligible managed-specialist roles only, one trial per customer. Not offered for AI, chatbot, prompt, automation, API-integration or QA work. Brand and graphic designers, brand strategists, video editors, content writers, copywriters and content marketers start with a paid pilot.
Full termsTime-zone overlap
At least four hours a day inside your core working hours. Two hours plus a daily written handover for the US West Coast.
Managed specialists only; not a staffing promise for project teams.
Full termsClear IP & Ownership Terms
Your materials remain yours. Bespoke deliverable rights, licences and handover are agreed before work starts.
All engagements.
Full termsClear Delivery & Escalation Ownership
Know who coordinates your engagement, who owns the work and how to escalate an issue.
All engagements. Roles may be combined and vary with your engagement.
Full termsWhy not just hire a freelancer?
A freelancer can be the right choice for a single, well-defined task. We are set up for work that needs an accountable team: a named coordinator, delivery reviewed by QA and a senior lead before release, and continuity arrangements written into the engagement. Confidentiality, ownership and escalation terms are agreed in writing before work starts.
How does time-zone overlap work?
Your engineers work at least four hours a day inside your core working hours. We set the window with you before the engagement starts and hold it for as long as the engagement runs. For the US West Coast the live overlap is two hours each morning, with a written handover at the end of every Indian day. We do not run night shifts: engineers who work nights leave quickly, and keeping the same people on your team matters more to us than a longer overlap.
Can we try you before we commit?
For eligible managed specialists, yes: up to 14 calendar days or 80 logged working hours, whichever comes first. Stop within it and eligible trial hours are free; continue and they're billed at the agreed rate. Unpaid trial work stays ours. Project work and other roles get a paid pilot with scope, acceptance criteria, duration and fee agreed first.
What if we want to stop?
Cancellation, notice and any renewal terms are written into your proposal or statement of work before you accept it. If an engagement ends early, we hand over completed, paid-for work and list any unfinished work separately. For an eligible specialist trial, you can stop within the trial window and pay nothing for eligible trial hours.
How we handle claims, credentials and your data: group credentials, dated ratings, how case figures are signed off, client permissions and data handling.
How we vet
How we vet a social media manager
and what to ask them.
How a manager writes in your brand voice usually shows only after they start. Our vetting brings that forward. It uses your own feed and the trade-offs of a busy calendar.
- 01Shortlist on real content calendarsWe put forward the specialist whose track record on real content calendars fits your channels, voice and gap. That work met our own standards and was reviewed weekly. Live channels they have run are available to review under NDA on request.
- 02Interview on your own feedShow them a few recent posts and ask what they would change. Strong candidates talk about the audience and purpose of each post, not just the design. Ask for a calendar they ran through a busy period and what they dropped to keep it going.
- 03Ask which platform they would stopAsk how they would reply to an angry customer with a real complaint. Then ask which platform they would stop posting on for your brand. A candidate who wants to be everywhere has usually never had to show what each channel is for.
- 04The trial: the presence reviewIf you take the trial, it runs on a scope agreed before it starts. Expect a written review of your current channels before the first calendar is agreed. Then posts are written for each platform, not resized.
Questions
Frequently
asked.
Eligible engagements can typically start two to three business days after scope, payment and required access are confirmed. Once we have a complete brief, we confirm when your proposal will arrive. You interview the specialist before anything is signed. If your brand guidelines or asset library are not written down yet, expect that work first, before posting picks up.
Onboarding starts with an NDA, then access to your channels and assets. The specialist reviews your current presence and writes up what they found. Then the first month's content calendar is agreed. From week one they join your stand-ups. So they learn your brand and channels inside your process, not alongside it.
You get a written report every week, tied to the results that matter to your business. It covers what went out, how the community responded, what is being tested and what comes next. Platform numbers sit next to the business context, and we explain the difference. We won't hand you a follower count and call it a result.
Yes, one person is the normal start: a single social media manager covers most channel lists comfortably. A video editor or community specialist joins when volume or channel count needs it. The monthly resize works both ways. The proposal names the second specialist who can pick up your community inbox. It also says whether their cover is in the monthly rate.
Because your channels keep running when one person is away. A freelancer can run a good calendar, but cover stops when they are away. Here, a named coordinator, an escalation contact and a named second specialist come with the engagement. If the first specialist is on leave or moves on, the second takes over community replies without a slow start.
No, and we would be wary of anyone who does. Organic reach depends on platform rules that change without notice. A single viral post is not a repeatable strategy. What we commit to is steady, on-brand posting and honest reports on what is working. We also make content decisions against your business goals, not a follower target.
Interview your social media manager
before you sign anything.
Tell us about your channels and the gap, and meet the actual specialist before anything is signed. If you really need a project rather than a person, we will say so on the first call.
Interview before signing · Scale monthly
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