This social media start-up wants to go national. And it’s already well on its way.

West Des Moines-based One Social Media LLC, which was conceived in March by CEO Joe Soto and two minority owners, already has close to 40 clients scattered across five states, an office outside Philadelphia, plans for a new Chicago office and grand plans to build into 28 U.S. markets during the next two years.

Soto’s company targets small to medium-sized businesses – clients include Kosama, Toyota of Des Moines and Medicap Pharmacies Inc. – that have struggled to grasp social media because of a lack of time or resources. One Social Media aims to manage its clients’ social media efforts by assigning each client a project manager, who essentially does the business’s blogging, tweeting and Facebooking. But One Social Media leaves responses and interactions on the platforms up to the actual business.

“For some clients, we will do more than others, but for all clients, we manage the monitoring process, but the clients are encouraged to tweet, blog and Facebook,” Soto said. “But we’ll fill in the gaps when they don’t have time.”

One Social Media’s lofty expansion goal hinges, Soto admits, on defying the traditional notion that a business’s social media efforts need to be generated from within the business.

“We’re definitely a different type of firm,” Soto said. “Catchfire Media and Lava Row, they are strategy and consulting firms, and we are an outsourced social media firm. It is a little bit different, but it is hard for people to get their heads wrapped around.”

Soto said the No. 1 question he’s asked by clients is how the company will make the postings personal. His team members, Soto said, meet with each client and profile the business to get to a point where they know enough about the business to start initiating the social media efforts.

The goal is to ensure that both the client and the One Social Media team are comfortable with what’s expected so that the communications seem as if they are coming from the business itself rather than from a ghostwriter.

“How can an advertising agency design an ad for a business?” Soto said. “They can’t unless they get to know the business first and what they are trying to achieve. We are the same way; we have to know that first before we can engage in social media.”