SMM Marketing in Kharkiv, Ukraine

Social Media Marketing in Kharkiv — managing social channels that bring leads and customers

Social media has become the primary place where businesses in Kharkiv and the Kharkiv region meet their customers. A café on Sumska street is checked on Instagram before the first visit, a dentist is chosen by Facebook reviews, a local clothing store is judged by TikTok reviews, and an IT company is researched through the founder’s LinkedIn posts. If your business doesn’t exist on social media, for most potential customers it doesn’t exist at all. I’m Alex Filiuk, a Senior digital marketer and UI/UX designer with 15 years of experience. I run SMM projects for businesses in Kharkiv, in other Ukrainian cities, the US and Europe. My portfolio includes 60+ digital marketing projects, a large share of them with companies from the Kharkiv region: HoReCa, beauty, medical, retail, IT, education, B2B manufacturing.

This page brings together practical material for a business owner or marketing lead choosing an SMM contractor in Kharkiv: what the working process looks like, which platforms I cover, how much it costs, how results are measured, what mistakes to avoid, and how an SMM specialist rooted in Kharkiv differs from a random capital-city agency or a freelance SMM-manager from a marketplace.

Why SMM is critical for businesses in Kharkiv and the region

In a city of 240,000+ residents with a strong small-and-medium business sector, competition in every category is high. It might seem like a regional market, but regionality creates specifics: your potential customers live near each other, cross paths in the same locations, and read the same local Telegram and Facebook chats. One viral-ish post can bring you hundreds of subscribers in a week. One unanswered public complaint can undo years of reputation work.

SMM in Kharkiv performs four key functions:

• Brand recognition. Regular publications, recognisable visual style, a single tone of voice — that’s what shapes the image of the company in the customer’s mind. Without this, marketing runs in idle.
• Lead generation. Direct messages, story bookings, Reels-to-website clicks, calls after targeted ads — these are concrete sales that SMM brings.
• Customer retention. Existing clients are subscribed to your pages, see your new arrivals, return for repeat purchases. Maintaining loyalty is far cheaper than acquiring new audiences.
• Social proof. Active comments, real reviews, customer tags — this builds trust with new audiences far more than any advertising can.

Which platforms I work with

There’s no universal formula “every business on every platform”. For one Kharkiv client Instagram is critical, for another LinkedIn, for a third TikTok. At the brief we agree which platforms genuinely fit your audience and business model.

• Instagram. The core of an SMM strategy for most local Kharkiv businesses. Feed + Reels + stories + Direct + highlights. Suitable for retail, HoReCa, beauty, medical, education, services.
• Facebook. Still effective for the 35+ audience, local Kharkiv community groups, B2B, real estate, legal services. Often paired with Instagram via the shared Meta Business ad account.
• TikTok. The fastest-growing channel for organic reach. Works for businesses with a visual product: retail, fashion, beauty, HoReCa, education, entertainment. Less relevant for B2B.
• LinkedIn. Mandatory for IT companies, B2B, expert consultants, recruiting, and entering international markets. Many Kharkiv startups specifically use LinkedIn to build the founder’s and team’s reputation.
• YouTube Shorts. A useful complement to TikTok strategy — the same vertical content but with a different audience and additional organic reach.

If your business needs a website that will be the “landing zone” for traffic from social media — I recommend doing UI/UX design and web development in unified logic with SMM. Without a good website or landing page, all paid traffic dies on the first click.

How the SMM management process looks — step by step

I work via a transparent process refined over 15 years. Each stage has a fixed deliverable and date. No “trust us and wait” — you know what’s happening every week.

1. Strategic session (week 1). A 90-120 minute brief: your business, audience, competitors in Kharkiv and the region, goals for 3-6-12 months. If you’re in Kharkiv — I meet in person. This is the foundation of everything that follows.
2. Content strategy (week 2). A 15-25 page document: tone of voice, content pillars, visual style, Reels hypotheses, monthly/quarterly KPIs. Presented to you, then aligned.
3. Monthly content plan (week 3). In Notion or Google Sheets — every post, story, Reel with a date, topic, copy, and visual reference. Approved before the month starts to avoid “firefighting” edits.
4. Content production (weeks 3-4 and onward). Visual design, copy, Reels editing, story design. If on-location filming in Kharkiv is needed — I come with a videographer/photographer.
5. Publishing + community management (ongoing). I publish on schedule, reply to comments and Direct 7 days a week. Leads are passed to your manager or CRM.
6. Targeted ads (from month 2). Setting up Meta Ads, audiences, creatives. Optimising by cost per lead, not by reach.
7. Monthly report. Not a “pile of charts” but 3-5 key KPIs with conclusions: what worked, what didn’t, what we do next.

The first noticeable results appear in months 2-3. A steady flow of leads — by months 4-6. SMM is a marathon, not a sprint. Anyone promising an “explosion in a week” is either planning to burn your budget on aggressive paid ads or lying.

How much does SMM promotion in Kharkiv cost

The price comes from the scope of work and number of platforms, not from the city — an entrepreneur from Kharkiv, Kyiv or Dnipro gets the same rates for the same package. Approximate ranges (exact figures are in the “Pricing” block above):

• Basic package. One platform (Instagram or Facebook), 12-15 publications, basic stories, comment replies. Suitable for small local business or a startup testing the channel.
• Standard package. Two platforms (Instagram + Facebook or Instagram + TikTok), full content plan, 4-6 Reels, daily stories, basic targeted ads. The most popular choice among Kharkiv clients.
• Premium. 3-4 platforms in a unified ecosystem, regular video content (8-12 Reels per month), active Meta Ads campaigns, 7-day community management, monthly reporting with ROAS analysis.

The Meta Ads media budget is accounted for separately — these are your spend on the ads themselves, paid directly to Facebook/Instagram, not to me. I usually recommend starting with a minimum starter budget that yields statistically significant data within 2-4 weeks. If you order SMM together with Google Ads, SEO, web development or branding — the combined package costs less than the sum of individual services.

Common mistakes in SMM — and how to avoid them

Over 15 years of work I’ve seen dozens of cases where a business in Kharkiv overpaid or got bad results due to typical mistakes. Here are the key ones:

• “Posting whatever comes to mind.” Without a content strategy and plan, posts become chaotic: a promo here, a motivational quote there, then something about the team — no logic and no system. The audience doesn’t understand why to subscribe.
• Ignoring Reels and vertical video. In 2025, Reels deliver 3-10x more organic reach than static posts. Businesses that skip them lose far more attention than they save on production.
• “Hire a junior to handle SMM for $200/month.” You hire someone without strategy, design, copywriting and ads experience all at once. The result — weak content, zero ad results and 6 months of wasted time. It’s cheaper to pay a specialist who does it systemically.
• Ads without Pixel and analytics. A business burns the Meta Ads budget but can’t tell how much one lead costs. Without correctly configured Pixel and Conversion API, optimising ads is impossible.
• Deleting negative comments. In Kharkiv, where the market is small, news of “strange brand behaviour” spreads instantly. Silencing or deleting is a guaranteed public crisis.
• Ordering SMM without a website. You drive an audience to Instagram, but where can they go next — “DM us to buy”? Without a website or at least a landing page, most “hot” leads are lost.
• One piece of content for all platforms. What works on Instagram doesn’t work on TikTok. A LinkedIn post is different from a Facebook post. Ignoring this leads to weak results across all platforms.

Modern SMM trends I keep in mind

Social media marketing evolves fast. Here are the key 2025-2026 trends I apply for businesses in Kharkiv:

• Short vertical video as the strategy backbone. Reels, TikTok shorts, YouTube Shorts — over 60% of organic reach for most businesses. Without them, reaching new audiences is nearly impossible.
• Founder personal branding. A face behind the brand earns 5-7x more trust than a faceless corporate account. Especially in Kharkiv, where “I’ll buy from a person, not a company” is typical behaviour.
• UGC (user-generated content). Content created by your customers is the cheapest and most effective form of social proof. I help Kharkiv businesses build systems to incentivise UGC.
• AI tools in production. ChatGPT for topic brainstorming, Midjourney for references, RunwayML for generation, CapCut for editing — not magic, but routine optimisation that saves dozens of hours a month.
• Concrete CTAs instead of “follow us”. Every post has a clear action: book, view, click, message. “An interesting post without a CTA” is a missed opportunity.
• Voice and tone of voice. Not “the brand’s visual style” but the brand’s vocabulary — how you speak, which words you use, which you don’t. A stronger differentiation tool than visuals.

Meta Ads targeted advertising — the details

I want to dwell separately on paid advertising. This is where businesses in Kharkiv most often burn the budget — either by themselves or via contractors who don’t deliver. What I do differently:

• Set up correct analytics. Meta Pixel + Conversion API + events (lead, Direct message, page views). Without this, all ads run “blind”.
• Build campaign structure as a funnel. Separate cold audience, separate retargeting, separate lookalike. Each with its own message and creative.
• Test creatives in pairs. Not “one creative and waiting”, but 4-8 variants at once. After 7-14 days I keep 2-3 winners and scale.
• Work with Kharkiv-region geography precisely. I can restrict the radius to 5-10 km from the point of sale, exclude zones with no purchasing power.
• Report by cost per lead, not CTR. CTR is an interim metric. Money is CPL and ROAS.

Cases: SMM projects from Kharkiv, Ukraine and abroad

My portfolio includes 130+ projects, of which ~60 involve SMM, content marketing or paid social. Among them — clients from various categories: HoReCa, beauty, medical, retail, IT, education, B2B manufacturing. I’ve worked with Kharkiv companies, with clients from Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa, the US and Europe. This lets me see how local Kharkiv businesses compete with national and international brands — and how SMM can become a tool of that competition.

If you want concrete examples — go to the “Projects” section or get in touch via the contact form: I’ll pick 5-10 most relevant cases for your niche and explain what worked, what didn’t, the cost per lead and how we scaled the result.

What you receive in SMM cooperation

• Strategic document of 15-25 pages with positioning, tone of voice, audiences, content pillars, KPIs.
• Monthly content plan in Notion / Google Sheets — with all posts, stories, Reels, copy and visuals.
• Ready posts and Reels — published on schedule without your involvement.
• Daily stories with polls, behind-the-scenes, products, promotions.
• Configured targeted advertising in Meta Ads with Pixel, audiences, retargeting, A/B tests.
• Community management — replies to comments and Direct 7 days a week.
• Monthly reports with KPIs: reach, leads, cost per lead, ROAS, dynamics.
• Process handover to your in-house team after 6-12 months without pain.

My other services for businesses in Kharkiv

SMM rarely works on its own. If you’re planning a serious digital launch, a complex approach is worth considering:

• Branding — visual identity that becomes the foundation for all SMM visuals.
• Logo design — a recognisable mark for social media avatars and covers.
• UI/UX design — landing page for collecting leads from ads.
• Web development — a full website as the foundation of digital presence.
• Google Ads — search ads for those already searching for you.
• SEO — organic promotion that complements social media.
• Email marketing — newsletters and automated flows for retention.
• Ad creatives design — static and video banners for paid advertising.
• Conversion optimization — so SMM traffic turns into money.
• Business consulting — positioning strategy before investing in marketing.

Social media marketing in other Ukrainian cities

I work not only with businesses from the Kharkiv region. If you have offices in several cities or are planning regional expansion — we’ll build a system that scales. Among other locations I actively work with:

• Kyiv — national brands, IT companies, chains
• Lviv — creative business, gastronomy, IT
• Odesa — retail, tourism, e-commerce
• Dnipro — manufacturing, B2B, technology companies
• Kharkiv — IT, education, engineering

The full list of locations is on the “Service Areas” page.

Ready to discuss SMM for your business in Kharkiv?

If you have a specific request — fill in the contact form or write to email/Telegram (contacts in the website footer). The first consultation is free, up to 60 minutes. We’ll discuss your business, the current state of your social channels, goals for 3-6 months, and an approximate ad budget. After that I’ll send a detailed proposal with a fixed price — no surprises and no hidden fees.

I’m ready to build for your business in Kharkiv an SMM system that will bring real customers for years. Not “pretty pictures”, but a working sales channel with a predictable cost per lead and clear KPIs.