Where Strategy LEADS
Part agency, part idea engine.
From Conference Stage To STRATEGIC PARTNER
We launched our first conference in 2008 to help brands think strategically and move smarter. The stage became our creative lab… where ideas were tested, refined, and shaped by real-time feedback. Today, that same spirit drives our work with clients. Everything we build is grounded in insight and refined in practice.
How We Work
We know how frustrating it can be to miss the mark. When your audience isn’t engaging, results aren’t showing up, or you’re stuck micromanaging partners who should already get it. We’ve been there. And we can help.
Here’s what we’ve learned: In an industry where almost everything feels commodified, the brands that win make a few smart moves. They ground their plans in research, lead with strategy, and invest in exceptional creative. That’s what cuts through.
The History of Social Fresh
2008 - Founding Social Fresh
Social Fresh started with local training events, launching its first conference in Charlotte, NC. Our very first training took place at the Charlotte Observer headquarters in Uptown Charlotte, a true hometown beginning.
2009 - National Tour
As demand grew, we took Social Fresh on the road, hosting 9 conferences in just over a year and making new friends from Miami to Portland, Charlotte to New Orleans. We built a national community one city at a time. It was ambitious, energizing, and, honestly, a little exhausting. (Would we do it again? Maybe not.) Along the way, we teamed up with Chevrolet for the now-legendary Chevy SXSW Road Trip (ask us about this one at happy hour!).
2010 - Strategy Meets Performance
Our consulting roots grew into content strategy and paid media. In 2010, HubSpot came on board as both a client and conference sponsor, marking one of our first major partnerships. We launched a national demand gen campaign that combined our conference platform, a webinar series, and led to over 150,000 leads. We’re proud to still collaborate with HubSpot today. Audience research, content strategy, and performance execution remain central to everything we do.
2012 - East Meets West
From 2012 to 2014, Social Fresh was bi-coastal. We hosted two flagship conferences each year: EAST in Florida and WEST in California. During this time, we also partnered with Hilton, LexisNexis, Chevrolet, and Omni Hotels on a range of content and digital strategy initiatives.
2016 - Research Becomes Core
In 2016, we published our first State of Social Media industry report, and it changed everything. After presenting our findings on stage at Social Fresh, a big brand approached us and asked, “Can we buy these reports?” That moment marked a shift. Research and trend reporting, which had shaped our conference programming for years, became a core part of our client work. Today, we help brands decode digital audiences, understand what drives their decisions, and stay ahead of the content and trends shaping culture.
2020 - Pandemic Pivots
We had just started selling tickets to our 2020 conference when COVID hit. With in-person events on pause, we quickly pivoted to virtual conferences and shifted focus to our agency work, taking on more client projects than ever before. In 2022, after a two-year hiatus, we brought the conference back in person, returning to Charlotte where it all began.
2026 - New York Conference
For the first time, our flagship conference is coming to New York City. While we’ve hosted events here before, this marks the debut of our main stage in the city, a full-circle moment for us. This next chapter brings a bold, social-native POV, expanding sessions into influencer marketing, PR, community, paid media, and AI. Right where culture and innovation collide.
WHAT WE BELIEVE
RESEARCH
MUST be
useful
You don’t need a 90-page deck. We dig for the good stuff and skip the fluff.
STRATEGY
IS
ACTION
We don’t hand you a vision. We hand you a map with turn-by-turn directions to get there.
CONTENT
NEEDS
PERSONALITY
Your content should feel authentic, like they come from a real person, not a committee.
BAD IDEAS
Drives
Creativity
Creativity isn’t linear, it’s messy, counterintuitive, and a process that can be optimized.
THE SOCIAL FRESH TEAM
Meet Jason Keath, Co-founder
Jason blends creativity with systems thinking. In college, Jason took the rare path of computer science turned art major, and that’s pretty much his personality today: focused on creativity and figuring out systems.
He was one of the first people in the world to run Facebook ads back in 2004, is a sought-after keynote speaker on marketing and creativity, and the author of The Case for More Bad Ideas.
Jason has worked with Chevrolet, Credit Karma, Maersk, LexisNexis, HubSpot, and Robinhood to help them connect with audiences in new and innovative ways.
He met Nicole during the early days of NYC Tweetups, and ever since, they’ve been building Social Fresh together.
What they’ve learned is clear: chasing the same trends as everyone else won’t fuel growth. The biggest wins come from investing where others aren’t looking. That’s where Social Fresh leads.
Meet Nicole D’Alonzo, Co-founder
Nicole discovered her passion for digital marketing during the mid-2000s financial crisis, when she realized its power for social good.
Moved to help those affected, she began creating social media content for charities, helping them reach donors and volunteers to expand their impact. That work led to her first agency role, launching The Laughing Cow Cheese into social.
Nicole went on to build one of the first influencer marketing programs and lead strategy at Omnicom’s Porter Novelli and L’Oréal, working with Merck, HP, Gillette, and Johnson & Johnson, before building Social Fresh alongside Jason.
Today, she brings that blend of hands-on experience and long-view thinking to every client project and Social Fresh conference.