Sarah Best

“Upon meeting Sarah, we were immediately impressed with the quality of the questions she asked and the clarity of her strategic approach to assessing our needs. Her clear vision echoes throughout her high quality team. Our SBS team was top notch and provided the perfect blend of structure and support to help us experiment and explore where social media could best fit within our association’s broader communication objectives. Our objectives included a website analysis and messaging development which were easily integrated into the portfolio of work supported by the SBS team. They gave us the footing to move forward with confidence, identifying the right communication tools to amplify the work of our association and, more importantly, our members.”

“Sarah Best is simply terrific at what she and her company do. As a client of hers, the International Wire & Cable Symposium (IWCS) needed a formal social media strategy to grow as an organization, particularly to attract more attendees and participants who were new to the wire and cable industry. With Sarah’s great ideas for communications on the various relevant platforms, we were able to not only evolve in our social media participation, but with her expert reporting and data analysis, we were able to quickly set the stage for real organizational growth. In particular, IWCS has grown significantly due to the social media-driven publicity of our webinar series and the noticeably enhanced attendance of younger industry members to our annual events. Thanks, Sarah!”

“We worked with Sarah and her team to redefine a major marketing campaign for our organization. Sarah was incredibly responsive, creative and helpful throughout the entire time we worked with her. She had a lot of ideas for how to streamline our ideas into a more effective campaign and provided us with a lot of Marketing 101 (and 102) knowledge that was new information for our staff. Sarah also provided a series of customized marketing trainings for our farmers, and the content of each training was on point and easy to follow. We had a great experience working with Sarah and would highly recommend working with her. ”

“I worked with Sarah and her team on two large-scale events, one (pre-COVID) in person event with 30k attendance where we were on-site together for 5 days, and one virtual event in the COVID era. Both times, Sarah provided invaluable support to my team, from strategy definition and planning to on-the-ground execution. From beginning to end she and her team was knowledgable, professional, creative and fun to work with. I can't recommend Sarah and her team highly enough, and I look forward to working with her again in the future! ”

“Working with Sarah and her team on OREF's social media strategy has been a true pleasure. I was impressed by how thoroughly she researched our mission and the competitive landscape. In addition to helping us understand how our current program was performing, Sarah provided us with the foundation for a content strategy that will allow us to create more impact and value with fewer resources. We are a nonprofit organization with limited marketing resources, and that was a critical factor in creating a realistic strategy and editorial calendar. I highly recommend Sarah Best Strategy and look forward to working with Sarah and her team on future projects.”

“It was a pleasure working with Sarah and her team. With her social media expertise, we were able to target our very niche target audience of accredited investors. She helped us executive numerous paid social campaigns that almost always performed better than expected. I would highly recommend her and her team!”

“We are so glad that we decided to work with Sarah! She provided a detailed audit of all of our social media with some tangible action items that we were able to use right away. She has an extensive knowledge of the social media world that she was able to share without giving us an overwhelming amount of information. I feel confident now that our communications team is moving in the right direction thanks to Sarah's advice.”

“It's been a pleasure working with Sarah Best and her team. We're bringing Social in-house or I'd still be her client. She creates thoughtful strategies for topics, timing, and content, and was able to create a templated framework that we could fill in each month to grow our audiences. We were able to get everything done with one phone call per month, then her team would get to work and do a great job, sharing a collaborative calendar where we could make notes and ask/answer questions. ”

“Sarah has an answer for everything. I had the pleasure of working toward my professional development goals with her covering social media & content strategy, and social advertising. The training was customized to my needs and we pulled examples from my work in each session, which helped me immediately put the lessons into practice. Her wealth of experience and ability to share that was fantastic. Thanks so much, Sarah!”

“Sarah is pleasure to work with. She is a talented, organized professional, and I am grateful for all of her expertise in bringing our website and messaging up to date. If I have the chance to work with her again, I absolutely will.”

“Sarah is an incredibly knowledgeable and effective SEO expert. I was blown away by her thorough research and well-planned approach. She was responsive and patient - always taking time to answer our questions, and empowering our team with tools and tips that have greatly aided our SEO efforts. She is accessible, responsive and drives results.”

“Sarah did an excellent job clarifying our company's creative directions and pre-launch marketing strategy. She also brought up some thought provoking ideas that our team will use moving forward. ”

“Sarah was a terrific asset to our small marketing team! She helped us master some SEO basics and gave us great feedback and content for our website and blog. I appreciate her work and organization and felt she was a perfect extension of our team. I hope to have opportunities to work with her again.”

“Sarah and her team were organized, knowledgeable, and very good communicators. They did a wonderful job walking us through the jargon of social media and analytics. I highly recommend them to anyone looking to grow their business or simply be in very capable hands. ”

“Working with Sarah was a professional highlight for 2016. You know when you play sports against a team that's better than yours, and rather than feel discouraged, you realize that their presence is making you a better player? That's how I felt every time I talked with Sarah, listened to her present her findings, or read her reports. She's so incredibly knowledgeable about social and digital media that I wish I could keep her on retainer! The work Sarah Best Strategy did for us included a massive audit of our existing social media accounts, with actual deliverables on how we can manage the multitude of accounts -- including a "one-page" report (some reports were 4-5 pages!) for each account that she audited. Our colleagues who manage social media for state and international offices were very appreciative. This was something that we were happy and proud to lead for the rest of the organization. I would hire Sarah again in a second. She's diligent, trustworthy, responsive, smart, and helpful. I only wish we had more like her, actually employed here, so that we could better implement her fabulous suggestions! ”

“Our chamber music festival was after some down-and-dirty advice about shoring up our social media strategy. We sought easy, high-return tips and we sure got them! No dancing around the pithy stuff. Sarah got right down to business and now we have a realistic to-do list. Thank you Sarah Best Strategy! -Sam Crownover, Executive Director, Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society”

“Sarah placed LinkedIn ads for my firm, and I found her to be diligent, dependable, responsive and results-oriented. She patiently tested hundreds of messages and image combinations over several weeks, and provided us easy-to-read metrics reports that helped us iterate on and refine our message. The intelligence she gleaned from our LinkedIn campaigns even helped us perfect our marketing messages for other social media and traditional channels. She knows how to target audiences and always sticks to the budget. I would use her again in a heartbeat.”

“ I have never meet anyone more knowledgeable about Social Media and Marketing than Sarah Best. Sarah turned the Chicago International Puppet Festival into a International sensation through targeted media buys, integrated marketing plans, and daily posts. During our Puppet Festival Symposium, Sarah in real time relied information for 6 hours straight to the many international followers that were not able to attend the event. Not only is she smart and can work independently, She is extraordinarily funny - a great attribute when dealing with stressful situations. I highly recommend her. ”

“When it comes to social media strategy, Sarah brings a wealth of insights. She did an excellent job conducting a full-scale audit of our social media channels, which helped us pinpoint our needs and establish better metrics for success. She also joined us as a presenter during our communications workshop and received rave reviews. ”

“Sarah helped us to fine-tune our social media ad-buying strategy at a critical moment in our company's growth. Her advice was spot-on: precise, actionable, easy to understand - and best of all, effective. I'd recommend a strategy session with her for anyone who wants to tighten up their online communications. Whether you've just established your Twitter account or you've got hundreds of thousands of Facebook followers, she'll help you identify ways to get more bang for the buck and drive sales. ”

“Sarah Best is the best!!! She has truly enlightened me about social media. The information I've gained from working with her is invaluable. She offers great insight and advice no matter what the industry, and is on top of the latest social media trends. I highly recommend Sarah to anyone who is looking to either get started in social media or amp up their current program. ”

“Sarah is an excellent project lead: a knack for setting expectations and defining business requirements clearly and proactively identifying potential opportunities or issues early in project life-cycle development. Noteworthy and distinctive is her trademark ability to disseminate the technical landscape in layman's terms with both elegance and care.”

“Sarah Best is a gifted and articulate strategist with a strength in qualitative research and creative brainstorming. She has incredible focus, and I've witnessed her efficiently analyze hundreds of data points about the demographics, behaviors, and interests of a target audience in just a few hours time! Sarah also brings the social media experience and panache to craft effective strategies that exceed the business goals of clients and drive nonprofit advocacy and awareness. Her brain + your team = incredible results!”

“Sarah has a seemingly endless amount of energy and creativity. We spent a lot of time in working sessions, and she always had another idea to try, another approach and most of all, the creative spark that you can't teach. She is that fresh perspective that you are missing.”

“Sarah was able to synthesize all of our research any give us a basic strategy - and operating plan - for how to build and manage our entire set of online content. Every deliverable was on schedule and exceeded quality standards.”

“Sarah kept us on track with our projects and brought her expertise to the table every time. Managing our projects were not easy because of integrating multiple stakeholders from our organization and constantly having to make adjustments. But with Sarah's help, we were on time and on budget and she was the best partner in the process. I enjoy working with her and value everything she brings - technical expertise, project management and creativity.”

“Sarah has a voluminous knowledge of content strategy, ADA compliance issues and best practices on the web. She's excellent at keeping projects on track and is a stellar communicator.”

“Sarah is an amazingly accomplished Social Media and Content Strategy guru. She's at home with both the writing/creative side and the analytics side of the equation. She is delightful to work with, has a great sense of humor and would be an amazing addition to any team!”

“Sarah understood the potential for social media better than everyone in 2009 when she reached out to Four Square and established a partnership with the City of Chicago's Tourism Office. It was one of the first partnerships of its kind and really paved the way for how businesses started interacting with customers in social media. I am very impressed by her understanding of social, as well as her humor and grace--online and off.”

“I worked with Sarah for about a year as the media relations partner for the firm she was with at the time. Sarah was such a fantastic resource. Her understanding of the power of content and communication in the digital space is deep, and her ability to bring everyone together around common goals is impressive. Talent like Sarah's is rare! I recommend her without hesitation.”

“Sarah was very easy to work with. I could come to her with any questions I had and she was more than willing to sit down with me and talk through any issues. It was a pleasure working with her and she gave me the confidence I needed to finish my work that was up to standards in a timely manner.”

“Sarah is a very detail-oriented researcher, content creator, community manager, and web strategist all rolled into one. She is equally at home with analytics data and user experience design and persona research, able to fine-tune the tweakiest detail while also staying focused on the big strategic marketing or business picture throughout a project's life cycle. If you're looking for someone to provide vision, create search engine and people-friendly content to match that vision, and measure benchmarked metrics to drive success I would definitely recommend Sarah.”

“I had the honor of working with Sarah at the Chicago Office of Tourism and Culture. Through her social media wisdom and guidance, I developed much stronger content creation and communications skills. I managed the Facebook and Twitter platforms for ChicagoPublishes.com and occasionally collaborated with Sarah to cross-promote literary events through ExploreChicago.org. I continue to seek Sarah as a consultant in my professional work and recently received unparalleled advice regarding Twitter and Sprout Social best practices for a nonprofit PR campaign. I highly recommend Sarah as a consultant, artist, and social director!”

“Sarah is an expert at both the strategy and execution of online marketing and communication. She has been at the forefront of the meaningful use of social technology, but this is only a small part of her experience. Her sharp insight would be an asset to any organization.”

“Sarah possesses a vast wealth of knowledge on web design and development in general, but she is also succinctly adept at following new and emerging trends in this field and figuring out how they apply to her work at the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs. Sarah is forever honing and sharpening her skills and understands the challenges inherent to coupling these new techniques with projects that are often simultaneously cutting edge and resource-constrained.”

“Sarah shows an exemplary urge to develop herself professionally, and has shown herself to be reliable, expeditious, adventurous, a quick learner and quite clever in our time together.”