Member Profile: Reel Good Social

As the digital marketing landscape continues to evolve, Reel Good Social helps clients navigate social media content development and strategy. By prioritizing authenticity, the social media agency fosters real connections between businesses and audiences. The Springfield Chamber recently spoke to Kelly Winberg, Founder of Reel Good Social, to find out more about the organization.

Tell us a little about Reel Good Social.
Reel Good Social is a social media and digital marketing agency serving Oregon-based brands. I started this business because I’ve hired for social media manager roles four times throughout my career, and every single time, it was harder than it should have been to find the right person. What I kept running into was this split between a few very different types of candidates:

• The videographer – incredibly talented behind a camera, but needed months of training on strategy, data, and business goals before they could really operate independently.
• The content creator – great creative instincts, but didn’t understand how optimizations for business outcomes actually worked.
• The 2015 social media manager – genuinely excellent when social was all graphics, pictures, and carousels, but never made the shift to video. The world of short-form video requires a completely different skill set, and many people are still catching up.

I built Reel Good Social to be the thing I couldn’t find: someone who understands both sides – the creative and the strategic. Social media is the number one place people spend their time, which makes it the most natural place for Oregon-based brands to market themselves, and I help them do it with authentic, relatable short-form video content that actually drives results.

How did you get started in your industry?
I’ve spent over a decade in digital marketing, working with a wide range of Oregon-based brands such as Market of Choice, Oregon Pacific Bank, The Human Bean, and Hop Valley, among others. Most recently, I led the organic marketing team at Palo Alto Software here in Eugene before launching Reel Good Social. That chapter ended abruptly when I was laid off, but by that point, I had already started building Reel Good Social on the side. The layoff became the push I needed to go all in, and I haven’t looked back since.

I have an MBA from Bushnell University and a marketing degree from the University of Oregon‘s Lundquist College of Business, but the real education has come from the work itself. Understanding what makes content perform, what makes audiences trust a brand, and what it actually takes to move the needle for Oregon-based brands on social media.

What services do you offer and what makes Reel Good Social different?
My core services are social media management, short-form video production, content creation, social profile optimization, and social media automations through ManyChat.

What sets Reel Good Social apart is where I start: the profile itself. Before I ever think about content, I make sure a client’s social media profile is fully optimized for maximum value. And most of the time, it isn’t. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve met with a prospective client whose content is telling their audience to “read this on our blog,” but when you go to click their link in bio, the blog isn’t there. Or it’s buried three clicks deep. I once spent ten minutes trying to track down a piece of content a business was actively promoting, and if I’m struggling to find it, your audience is absolutely not going to bother!

Getting that foundation right – your link in bio, your profile copy, your call-to-action structure – is what turns a social media presence from just “posting” into something that actually works. Most agencies skip straight to the content. I don’t.

What do you like most about your work?
I live for the thrill of a post that pops off. There’s something about creating content that’s so relatable that people genuinely want to share it with their friends and family. Content that makes them feel seen. Getting to be part of that moment, knowing that I made something that sparked that reaction, is really hard to beat.

And then there are the moments when a client tells me that someone found them through social media for the first time. Oregon-based brands pour everything into what they do, and when their online presence finally starts to reflect that, it’s incredibly rewarding to be part of. I also love that this work lets me be both strategic and creative at the same time. The best content sits right at the intersection of both, and that’s where I thrive. Short-form video is one of the most dynamic spaces in marketing right now, and the challenge of capturing a brand’s personality in 30 to 60 seconds never gets old.

Any advice for others?
Get on TikTok sooner than later!! And, don’t be afraid to post content that feels a little unpolished. Do not overthink it (that only stifles social performance). TikTok loves authentic, uncurated content because it consistently outperforms the stuff that looks like it came out of a production studio. I’ve posted the same type of content on both Instagram and TikTok, and the difference in reach is hard to overstate. TikTok’s algorithm is remarkably good at finding users who are actually interested in your topic. 

One video I posted about Pacori, a local coffee shop in West Eugene, got around 200 likes on Instagram, and it’s sitting at about 1,500 likes on TikTok. Same video, completely different outcome. Local marketing absolutely crushes it on TikTok, and most Oregon-based brands haven’t tapped into that yet!

And a word on the fundamentals: stop skipping the foundation. So many businesses jump straight to posting content before their profile is even set up to convert. Your link in bio, your profile description, your contact info. These things matter more than most people realize, and they’re the first thing a potential customer checks when your video catches their eye. Get that right first, then worry about the content strategy.

Finally, for anyone thinking about going out on their own: the timing is never going to feel perfect. You’re going to have moments of doubt. Do it anyway.