Neal Schaffer

Neal Schaffer works on the part of marketing that most budgets underfund: the trust that gets built long before anyone fills out a form.

As Fractional CMO at PDCA Social, he builds digital marketing programs for organizations that need to grow without outspending their competitors. He is the author of six books including Digital Threads (2024), a playbook for weaving search, email, and social media into one connected strategy, and the second edition of Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth (2026). His 2020 book The Age of Influence made the case that influencer marketing is really about mobilizing the people already closest to a brand, starting with its own customers and employees.

Neal teaches social media and influencer marketing at UCLA Extension and Rutgers Business School, hosts the Your Digital Marketing Coach podcast, and speaks at conferences worldwide. He is based in Southern California.

He comes to senior living as an outsider in one sense and not at all in another. He has never worked for an operator, which is why SMASH invited him. He has also been on the other side of the decision twice, once when his father chose a community on word of mouth alone, and again when his family chose one for his mother. Both experiences shape how he thinks about where trust actually gets built.