CLOSE CURTAIN
A Social Media & Destination-Marketing Proposal

Explore Auburn,reimagined.

Auburn is a place people fall for — the canyon at golden hour, Old Town on a Saturday morning, the finish line of a hundred-mile race. The Endurance Capital of the World deserves storytelling made here: original, cinematic, and consistent. Here's what the same budget you spend today can build instead.

Prepared for
The City of Auburn
Attn
Councilmember Sandy Amara
Prepared by
Close Curtain
Date
July 2026
Scroll to begin ↓
01 — The Opportunity

You have one of the most photogenic towns in California.

Old Town's gold-rush storefronts. The confluence of the American River. Trailheads, vineyards, the courthouse dome at golden hour, and world-famous endurance events that draw athletes from across the planet. Auburn doesn't have a content problem — it has a content capture problem.

A destination this rich should have a feed people screenshot and save. You've already built an audience of 18,000 followers — that's the hard part, done. But it's being underfed: @exploreauburnca runs on a low cadence, and the stream is made mostly of reposts, tags, and collab shares rather than original work. That's not a knock on the town — it's a signal that the current setup isn't built to actually go out and make things here. Close Curtain is.

18K
followers already built
~14
posts / month today
$4,500
current monthly spend
~$321
cost per post — mostly reposts

Current-vendor figures reflect what was shared directly and what's publicly visible on the account. A complete, no-cost audit is included as step one of any engagement.

Why it matters

People don't just visit Auburn.
They fall for it.

Every golden evening over the canyon, every farmers-market Saturday, every first glimpse of the courthouse dome is a reason someone chooses to come, to linger, to move here and open a business. Your social feed is where that feeling starts — long before anyone arrives. Let's make it feel like the place itself.

02 — The Honest Audit

Same budget. Two completely different outcomes.

Today

  • ~14 posts per month — inconsistent cadence
  • Mostly reposts, tags & collab shares
  • Little to no original photography or video
  • No short-form video (Reels) engine
  • No event-day / real-time coverage
  • No visible content strategy or calendar
  • No monthly reporting on what's working
  • An 18K audience being underfed
03 — The Value Math

The switch pays for itself in output alone.

At the same $4,500 you spend today, cost per post drops from ~$321 for reposts to ~$140 for fully original work.

More than double the volume. A fraction of the cost per piece. And every single one of them made in Auburn, for Auburn.

14 → 32
posts / month
0 → 8+
reels / month
~30% → 100%
original content
04 — Why Us

We're not pitching a plan. We're already doing this in Auburn.

Close Curtain is a content studio with its office right here in Auburn. Right now we run the social presence for a three-brand hospitality group in town — a restaurant, a lounge, and an event venue — producing 40+ original posts a month across all three, every week, on location.

While shooting in Auburn last week, a councilmember stopped to ask what we do. That's the point — you can see our work happening around town. We'd simply be pointing that same camera at the whole city.
🎬

In-house production

Photo, video, Reels, editing, drone/aerial and copywriting — all under one roof. No stock, no filler.

📍

An office in town

Our studio is based right here in Auburn — not a big-city agency phoning it in. Event coverage, golden-hour shoots and same-week turnarounds, because we're minutes from Old Town.

⚙️

A real system

Content calendar, approval workflow, scheduling and monthly reporting — a repeatable engine, not one-off posts.

05 — The Content Strategy

Five stories that make Auburn impossible to scroll past.

Every post ladders up to one of five pillars, balanced across the month so the feed feels like a destination brand — not a bulletin board.

PILLAR 01

The Endurance Capital

Western States 100, the Tevis Cup, the Auburn International Triathlon, trail running and mountain biking — including aerial follow-shots of the point-to-point courses. Own the identity that already makes Auburn world-famous.

PILLAR 02

Gold Country & Old Town

The Placer County Courthouse, the Bernhard Museum, Firehouse No. 2 and the gold-rush storefronts of Old Town — a town telling its story since 1848, shot the way visitors screenshot it before they book.

PILLAR 03

The River & the Outdoors

The American River confluence shot from above, the State Recreation Area, rafting, hiking and gold panning — Auburn as the adventure gateway to the Sierra foothills.

PILLAR 04

Eat, Drink & Local Makers

Restaurants, the farmers market, foothill wineries, the downtown "Entertainment Zones" sip-and-shop, and the makers who give Old Town its pulse. This is where we already have deep reps.

PILLAR 05

Events & Community

Festivals, the Big Time Pow Wow, seasonal moments and the people of Auburn — real-time Stories coverage that turns residents into sharers.

The unfair advantage

Auburn, from the air.

We fly licensed aerial cinematography — FAA Part 107, not a hobby drone. The kind of footage that stops a thumb mid-scroll and makes someone decide to visit: sweeping shots of the confluence, Old Town at golden hour, and endurance courses no ground camera can reach.

🚁

The confluence, from above

The forks of the American River and the canyon — the most cinematic frame in the county, and almost never shot from the air.

🌇

Old Town at golden hour

The courthouse dome, gold-rush rooftops and Highway 49 threading through — establishing shots that sell the whole town in three seconds.

🏃

The endurance courses

Follow the Western States trail and the Tevis route across terrain no ground camera can cover — footage worthy of the Endurance Capital.

Licensed & insured (FAA Part 107). Built into Signature & Destination; available à la carte on Foundation.

06 — The First 90 Days

A clear runway from day one.

Weeks 1–2Foundation

Audit, access & strategy

  • Full audit of @exploreauburnca — content, cadence, engagement, follower quality
  • Brand voice, visual guidelines and a 90-day content calendar
  • Secure account access, tooling and the approval workflow the City is comfortable with
  • First on-location shoot day scheduled around Auburn's event calendar
Weeks 3–8Engine on

Original content, live and consistent

  • Monthly shoot days producing a full library of photo + video
  • Consistent posting across the five pillars — feed, Reels and Stories
  • Community management: replies, resident features, partner tags done right
  • First seasonal campaign launched
Weeks 9–12Prove & scale

Measure, report, optimize

  • First monthly analytics report + strategy review with the City
  • Double down on top-performing formats and pillars
  • Roadmap for platform expansion (TikTok, YouTube Shorts, Google Business Profile)
  • Fresh content plan for exploreauburnca.com — photography, video & seasonal features
07 — Side by Side

What $4,500 buys today vs. with Close Curtain.

DeliverableCurrent VendorClose Curtain — Signature
Monthly investment$4,500$4,500 (same budget)
Posts per month~1430–35
Original vs. repostedMostly reposts / tags100% original
Short-form video (Reels)None8+ / month
On-location shootsNot evidentMonthly shoot days in Auburn
Stories & event coverageMinimalOngoing + live event days
Content strategy & calendarNot evidentDocumented, seasonal
Monthly reportingNone sharedAnalytics + strategy call
Local presenceRemoteOn the ground, weekly
Worth the trip since 1848

A town with this much story
deserves to have it told well.

Beautifully. Consistently. Every single week. Here's what that partnership looks like — and what it costs.

08 — Investment

Three ways to work together.

Every tier is 100% original content, managed end-to-end, with no long-term lock-in — a simple month-to-month or annual agreement. The middle tier matches your current spend exactly.

Foundation
A clean, consistent, all-original feed.
$3,500/mo
Below the current spend — with far more original work.
  • 20 original posts / month
  • 4 Reels / month
  • Stories coverage
  • Monthly content calendar
  • Instagram + Facebook
  • Community management
  • Monthly performance snapshot
Signature
Same budget you spend now — transformed.
$4,500/mo
Matches today's spend · ~3× the output · 100% original.
  • 30–35 original posts / month
  • 8+ Reels / month
  • Monthly on-location shoot day in Auburn
  • Daily Stories + live event coverage
  • Seasonal campaigns on Auburn's calendar
  • Instagram + Facebook + Google Business Profile
  • Full community engagement
  • Seasonal aerial (drone) coverage
  • Monthly analytics + strategy call
Destination
A full destination-marketing partner.
$6,500/mo
The complete brand-of-a-city program.
  • 40+ original posts / month
  • 12+ Reels + signature video series
  • 2 shoot days / month + licensed drone/aerial (Part 107)
  • All platforms: IG, FB, TikTok, YouTube, GBP
  • Real-time event-day coverage
  • Creator & partner collaborations
  • Paid social management (ad spend separate)
  • Quarterly campaigns + executive dashboard

Optional add-ons

Website content
Fresh photography, video & seasonal features for exploreauburnca.com — quoted per scope.
Extra aerial days
Additional licensed Part 107 drone shoots of the confluence, Old Town & events.
Photo & video library
A licensed asset library the City owns and can reuse anywhere.
Email newsletter
A monthly "what's happening in Auburn" visitor newsletter.

Pricing is a starting framework for discussion and can be tailored to the City's procurement process and budget cycle. A no-cost audit and sample content plan are included before any commitment.

Also on the table — Your digital front door

While we're at it: a website that matches the town.

exploreauburnca.com already has good bones. This isn't a rebrand — it's a modernization: your name, your brand, your content, rebuilt faster, bolder and mobile-first, and designed to show off the photos and video we'll be making every month.

exploreauburnca.com
Concept mockup of a modernized Explore Auburn homepage

What the modernization includes

  • Fresh, modern design — your logo, colors & structure kept
  • Mobile-first & fast, on Cloudflare's global network
  • A cinematic hero built from our own photo & video shoots
  • Your existing categories, listings & events — all migrated for you
  • Simple events / listing updates going forward
  • SEO, analytics & accessibility baked in
$4,500
one-time modernization
$2,500
bundled with a social package
+$99/mo
optional care plan (hosting & edits)

Above: a quick concept of the direction — not a final design. A modernization keeps everything Auburn already owns; we just bring it up to date.

09 — Let's Make It

Auburn already looks like this.
Let's make the feed match.

The next step is simple: a free, no-obligation audit of @exploreauburnca and a sample two-week content plan — so the City can see exactly what a switch delivers before deciding anything.

Request the free audit →
Matt Zlaket · Close Curtain
matt@closecurtain.com
closecurtain.com
Prepared for the City of Auburn · Attn. Councilmember Sandy Amara · A proposal by Close Curtain · July 2026