Social Tribe Reviews

I’ve never been more micromanaged in my entire life. Every single day you have to say what you completed the day before and what you’re working on that day. That’s on top of listing out everything in the project management tool, team meetings, leadership meetings, having to bill in real time, etc. It used to be a great place to work. They used to be flexible on what hours you worked. They used to care about work-life balance. But this last year has been unbearable. The amount of turnover we’ve had in the last few months shows it. It’s literally a revolving door with people lasting less than a year. The leadership team has no idea how to run an agency effectively. And it’s no surprise considering none of them have actually worked in an agency in the past. They went from being an 100% contractor employee base doing solely community management and event support to pitching social and influencer strategies with a 100% salaried employee base... at the same time. Talk about growing too fast with no idea how to grow. Sure, they hired people who could do social and influencer strategies, but they never bring them into account conversations with clients. And because of it, they literally can’t explain to a client what a strategy is, what goes into implementing a social program, what project management is, and so on. And that shows in how they scope projects. They have literally never scoped a single project with enough hours. We’re constantly under delivering because of it - none of the work we do gets anywhere near to being “great.” And the saddest thing is they don’t even know it. Every time we lose a client or a new business pitch, I see it coming. Soon we won’t have any clients left and we’ll going from people leaving to people being let go. You’re constantly having leadership set due dates with clients without consulting you. And every single time it’s an unreasonable timeframe or there’s multiple projects due at the exact same time. And since they’re incapable of saying no to clients, you’re stuck delivering half-okay work or working until 11 at night. But really the personalities of the leadership team is really the cherry on top of it all. They’re condescending - and since most of them are inadequate at their own jobs, the condescension is unwarranted. None of them have worked outside of the community management space or in a client services leadership role. So instead of them learning from each other, you have to teach them. Which would be fine if that was considered part of your role and you’re compensated for it, but you’re not. The only one who’s genuinely a nice person literally can’t remember conversations you’ve had with them. So you end up redoing work over and over. It’s the most frustrating thing. And when you give feedback on members of the leadership team, they get defensive, tell you the other members are “really good at their jobs” and that we don’t understand what they’re dealing with. They expect you to take rudely worded criticism, but they won’t even take constructive feedback themselves. They’ll let the clients treat you like crap and set unrealistic deadlines and deliverables given the low scopes. The benefits are laughable. Only you are covered by the health insurance - you have to pay full price for spouses and dependents. Which considering what they pay us is unreasonable. The people acting as HR and the benefits have never been in that role and don’t understand how either role should act. They just read documents they’ve googled back at you and completely disregard law. They pretend to be caring, and then ask you invasive questions they legally can’t ask you - and made someone go without pay because of COVID. Half the benefits don’t kick in until after you’ve been there a year. No one in my area takes the dental insurance. Shall I go on... I genuinely don’t expect them to last much longer. They’re hemorrhaging employees and clients. And it’s not because of the pandemic.

Unfortunately, management kept wanting to take on more projects and internal initiatives without adding staff, and the once-loyal employees began dropping like flies from burnout. Now plagued by employee departures and layoffs, the agency is spiraling before it putters to a halt. The CEO can't come to grips with this reality and has strong-armed remaining employees (of which there are less than five) into signing NDAs so current clients won't know they're on the verge of closing. They're still trying to hire account coordinators and copywriters to do the grunt work. There are some serious "pay no attention to that man behind the curtain" things happening, which potential recruits need to be warned about because management is not being honest.