Best Social Media Agencies in Minneapolis (2026)

Introduction

Minneapolis has 10 agencies worth shortlisting for social media work in 2026, ranging from two social and paid social specialists to integrated and PR firms that list social or influencer work as a named service.

Consumer brands shape much of the local work. General Mills, Polaris, Cargill and Red Wing Shoes all appear on The Social Lights’ client list, and food runs through the rest of this page, from Surly Brewing to foodservice brands. Recent news includes The Social Lights opening a new North Loop office in 2025, and broadhead winning two Shorty Awards and an Ad Age Small Agency of the Year title in 2026.

Every firm here has a Twin Cities office and showed signs of activity in 2026. The list was chosen on social and influencer services named by each firm, recent recognition and the clients it can point to. It is unranked, and the numbering carries no order of merit.

The best social media agencies in Minneapolis

1. The Social Lights

Woman-owned · North Loop · thesociallights.com

The Social Lights describes itself as a social-first agency, and its service lines cover social advertising, content and social strategy, creative production, media planning and buying, and social care. Emily Pritchard is its founder and CEO, and the agency dates from 2011. It opened a new office in the North Loop’s Steelman Exchange building in March 2025, and has made the Inc. 5000 four times.

Clients named in that announcement include General Mills, Cargill, Massage Envy, Polaris and Red Wing Shoes. Its case studies lean on snack brands: Fruit Roll-Ups x Ice Cream won a Webby for Real Time Response and a Shorty Silver Honor for TikTok, and the Chex Mix “Bagel Is Back” video with Sir Mix-A-Lot took Best in Social at AdFed: The Show 2024.

2. Goodbye Vanilla

No parent company listed · Minneapolis · goodbyevanilla.com

Goodbye Vanilla is a paid social and performance specialist. It runs campaigns across Meta, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Snapchat, and has its own planning platform, QuantumQuotient. The agency says Meta has acknowledged it as a top ROAS performer in retail and a top three agency in higher education. It also says it has access to a marketplace of more than 800,000 creators, influencers and affiliates.

Case studies include Batteries Plus, Northern Tool + Equipment and Concordia University St. Paul. For Surly Brewing Co it ran paid social on Meta, Snapchat and TikTok with micro-influencers and whitelisting, reporting about 50 million impressions. Those case studies were posted in 2024, so ask for more recent results.

3. Fast Horse

Independent · North Loop · fasthorseinc.com

Fast Horse calls itself an independent, integrated creative communications agency, with Social Media and Influencer among its ten listed services. Jörg A. Pierach is the founder. The agency has been named to Twin Cities Business “Best of Business” for nine consecutive years, and lists PR Week, Cannes Lions and CLIO honours among its recognition.

Its portfolio includes Pie Lovers Unite for Edwards Desserts, Snowmaritans for Toro, #GiveHerTheQ3 for Audi and Small Business Revolution for Deluxe. The service mix includes media relations and experiential alongside social, which suits campaigns built to earn attention. The work page carries no dates, so ask which projects are recent.

4. broadhead

Independent · North Loop · broadheadco.com

broadhead is a full-service agency, independent since 2001, with offices in Minneapolis, Charlotte and the Milwaukee area. Ad Age named it a 2026 Small Agency of the Year. Its Social Influence practice covers influencer marketing, social strategy, community management, creator partnerships, content creation and paid social.

In May 2026 it won two Shorty Awards, in Local Campaign and Art Direction, for Sunkist’s “See the Sublemonal”. The campaign launched in Denver with billboards, brand ambassadors and influencer content, and broadhead reports a 29% rise in lemon purchases from restaurant partners over six weeks. Other clients include Mini Melts, Mips and Boehringer Ingelheim, with a focus on agriculture, food, healthcare, pet care and transport.

5. Haberman

Founder-led, with staff owners · Southeast Minneapolis · modernstorytellers.com

Fred and Sarah Haberman opened the agency in 1994, and Fred remains CEO. It positions itself as “Modern Storytellers for Pioneers” and leans towards food, health and mission-led brands. Influencer is a named service alongside brand strategy, creative, digital, PR and media. Social media is not listed as a separate line, so check how it would be staffed.

Featured work includes Special Olympics, Organic Valley, Loacker, Dole Whip and a teen vaping programme for the Minnesota Department of Health. The wider client list takes in Vital Farms, Annie’s, Traditional Medicinals and Stella & Chewy’s.

6. Bellmont Partners

No parent company listed · Edina · bellmontpartners.com

Bellmont Partners is a PR agency founded in 1996, and suits organisations that want influencer work run alongside media relations. Its services include Influencer Relations and multi-platform content development, and its recognition includes MN PRSA Classics awards and finalist places, one of them for social media promotion. Bridget Monroe Nelson and Hyedi Nelson of the firm are 2026 Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal Women in Business honourees.

It works across health and medtech, food and agriculture, manufacturing, nonprofits, professional services, public affairs, technology, and tourism and hospitality. Its named work includes Visit Duluth and the City of Duluth. Social media management is not listed as a separate service, so it is a better fit for influencer and earned programmes than for always-on channel management.

7. IN Food Marketing & Design

Women-owned · North Loop · infoodmarketing.com

IN Food has worked in foodservice marketing since 1995. Anita Nelson founded and owns the agency, which is WBENC certified. She was recently honoured in the CO-100 list of America’s Top 100 Small Businesses, as top honouree in the Community Champions category. The team of about a dozen includes dedicated social media staff.

Its social offer covers organic and paid campaigns, content strategy, community management and reporting, planned through a framework it calls INgage. The audience is foodservice operators, as in the #MyKindaFood campaign for Tornados from Ruiz Foodservice. Other names on its site include Pillsbury, Johnsonville, BakeMark and General Mills Convenience & Foodservice.

8. Fresh Coast Collective

No parent company listed · South Minneapolis · freshcoastcollective.com

Fresh Coast Collective is a small creative studio that combines content production, strategy, design and social, and it usually partners with in-house brand and communications teams. Its Social & Digital Activation service covers activation, measurement and optimisation for paid and organic social.

Its uni Brands case study describes a scalable content system with social media management across channels. It is also a long-term creative partner to Mortenson, and testimonials come from Cedar Design Build and City Girl Coffee. It suits a team that wants content production and social under one roof. The site carries a warning about fraudulent emails using the studio’s name, so confirm any unexpected approach directly.

9. Padilla

No parent company listed · Downtown Minneapolis · padillaco.com

Padilla is a PR and communications agency headquartered in Minneapolis, and its services include Social Media and Creative + Content. It works across food, beverage and nutrition, health, agriculture, consumer, technology and financial services, so social tends to sit inside a wider communications programme.

The site names no clients on its main pages, so ask for social examples in your category. It has also announced a planned leadership transition, with Julie Batliner succeeding Matt Kucharski as president, which is worth raising in a pitch.

10. Russell Herder

Founder-led B Corp · International Market Square · russellherder.com

Russell Herder is a creative, advertising and branding agency with more than 40 years of work behind it, led by founding partners Carol Russell (CEO) and Brian Herder (chief creative officer). It is a certified B Corp with a “Best for the World” designation from B Lab, and Social Media is one of its listed services.

Work on its site includes Odyssey Resorts, Timberland Partners, Know the Dangers and Healing Hearts Connection. It suits organisations that want social handled by the same team as brand and campaign work.

What to look for in a Minneapolis social media agency

Decide first which job needs doing. Always-on channel management, paid social, influencer programmes and social-led campaigns call for different teams, and few firms here are equally strong at all four. The Social Lights and Goodbye Vanilla are the most specialised on this list. Several of the others run social as part of a PR or integrated offer, which helps when social has to line up with press or brand work.

Sector experience counts for a good deal in this market. Food is the clearest example: consumer snack brands, natural food and foodservice operators have very different audiences, and the agencies here tend to specialise accordingly. Brands with a large in-house team should also ask how the agency works alongside it, and who owns community management and publishing.

Ask how the agency reports, and on which measures. Platforms keep changing the numbers and the rules: Meta has been replacing Impressions with Views in Facebook Page Insights, and TikTok’s US operation moved to a joint venture in early 2026. A good agency will explain how those changes affect year-on-year comparisons and how paid, organic and creator activity are measured separately.

Social work also produces a high volume of small assets, each needing quick sign-off. Ask where drafts live, how clients comment on short-form video, and who confirms that a change has been made. Creator content adds usage rights and more outside parties, so a clear review process saves time as the number of posts grows.

How Fabric helps social media agency teams

Fabric gives a social team one workspace for assets, client feedback and account knowledge, with AI search across all of it. The setup for social content teams suits agencies running several client channels at once.

Footage, raw creator content and exports sit in Fabric’s cloud drive, which streams files on demand so they take no local disk space. Search works by meaning across documents, images and transcribed audio and video, and results jump to the right page or timestamp. Colour search helps when a post has to match a campaign palette.

For content pipelines, a Kanban board turns any folder into a board whose cards are the files themselves, so a post can move from draft to scheduled with the asset attached.

Client review runs through shared links. Share a file or folder with the client as a commenter, with no sign-up needed, and they can leave timestamped comments on video and audio, draw on a video frame or image and attach a comment, or highlight text in a caption document. The team marks each comment completed as the change is made, so the feedback works like a checklist. Published links are view-only, so they suit finished work and keep review rounds separate.

On Team plans, self-writing docs maintain a page for each client from meetings, Slack and the workspace, covering decisions, deliverables and open items.

Self-writing docs are available on Team plans, which start from $125 a month. See plans for teams.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best social media agency in Minneapolis?

There is no single answer, as it depends on the brief. The Social Lights has the strongest social-first record on this list, including Webby and Shorty wins. broadhead has the most recent high-profile recognition, with two Shorty Awards and an Ad Age Small Agency of the Year title in 2026. For paid social, Goodbye Vanilla is the specialist.

Which Minneapolis agencies handle influencer and creator work?

Fast Horse, Haberman and Bellmont Partners all list influencer as a named service. broadhead lists creator partnerships within its Social Influence practice, and Goodbye Vanilla used micro-influencers in its Surly Brewing Co campaign.

Which Minneapolis social media agencies suit food brands?

The Social Lights has built much of its reputation on snack brands, and Haberman works with natural and organic food companies. IN Food Marketing & Design focuses on foodservice operators, and broadhead’s food and beverage work includes Sunkist.

Should I hire a social specialist or a full-service agency?

A specialist usually suits channel management, paid social and fast reactive content. A full-service or PR firm can make more sense when social has to carry a wider campaign. If you need heavy content production alongside either, the Minneapolis content studios list is a useful next step.

What should a social media agency report on?

Agree the measures before work starts, and keep paid, organic and creator results separate. Most reports cover reach or views, engagement, click-through and, where it can be tracked, sales. Ask how platform changes will be handled, since definitions such as Meta’s move from Impressions to Views can affect comparisons over time.

Related lists

Social media agencies in other cities: New York · London · Los Angeles · Chicago · Toronto

More in Minneapolis: Creative agencies · Marketing agencies · Advertising agencies · Branding agencies · Content studios · Video production

Run your agency on Fabric: Fabric for agencies · Social content teams · Content planning