Whether you decide to manage your business’ social media or to outsource it is a decision you should not take lightly. Putting together a social media calendar and maintaining it takes a good bit of effort. But however you decide to go ultimately, it is best that you understand the following:
Social media is critical to your business because it allows you to reach people organically locally, regionally, nationally or even can touch potential customers internationally!
So, when it comes to social media, you want your actions to enhance your company/brand’s overall prominence. And when you do so, if you decide to outsource this, be sure you are not just going on price alone. Just because your kids’ friends knows about social media networks doesn’t mean they understand your business and the objectives you are wanting to achieve.
What do you want to achieve with your social media marketing?
There is a saying “Know what you want to achieve and work backwards”. The same can be said about social media marketing. You want to be clear on the objectives you are wanting to achieve.
A small sampling of your objectives might be:
- Position your brand as the go to authority – Demonstrating your authority in a particular space helps to build brand awareness and positions your company (and you) as an expert.
- Generate traffic to your website – Having a large social media presence is great, but useless if it isn’t driving people to where you make sales…your website! This requires a deliberate approach, including relevant content and appropriate timing. And if you aren’t posting regular blog posts to your site, consider outsourcing this.
- Increase subscribers to your email list – Maintaining a meaningful relationship with prospects is critical to the know/like/trust aspect of marketing. To get their attention initially, you must create persistent, attention getting calls to action. Then once you have them, nothing is more critical than turning those leads into full-fledged customers. To be clear, doing that is going to require more than just social media to get the job done!)
Once you understand what it is you want to achieve, you can begin to formulate a social media program. Then determine which social media platform(s) your ideal customer is likely to be and put together a social media calendar. Keep in mind your ideal customer may not be hanging out in the places you may be typically thinking, so take the time to do some research to insure you are working the appropriate platforms.
What kind of social media packages are available for your business?
If you decide this is more than you want to take on, most social media management agencies will offer multiple packages for you to choose from. They can range from posting content on a single platform to something more robust that is going to encompass multiple social networks. By understanding the objectives for your business (see above), you can determine exactly what you need to spend.
For most small businesses or start-ups, a package containing one post a day of relevant content is the minimum needed.
And if you are just starting out, begin with just one network to maintain. Get a better understanding of your ideal customer and their needs before expanding to additional social media platforms. Save yourself a bunch of money and do well there first!
What sort of social media management packages are there and why the price difference?
Package deliverables and pricing is dependent really on how much work you are asking the agency to perform on your behalf.
To be sure, there is no one size fits all approach to social media management. What you can expect to see most often are package levels (typically in ascending costs) that include:
- Content only – Posting a certain number a times either per day/week or month
- Interacting relationship on your behalf – This is replying, communicating, updating posts for you on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis
- Direct/Indirect Outreach – this may be to attract media exposure, gain new followers, reaching out to potential partners/cross-sellers, etc
- Objective strategy – this may involve a campaign of some sort where reporting is communicated regularly in order to adjust/optimize results
Pricing can be as low as $50 @ month for generic posts (Social Media Dudes doesn’t advocate buying this service at this price because they feel the results are “generic” as well). Take these for what they are, automated programs that produce posts according to topics you choose. They are neither company nor brand specific. While you will have a social media presence, you should not expect relationships or building a community with these types of posts.
The next step up is in the $100 – $200 @ month range where you will have daily posts that are designed to be specific to you/your company/service. They are branded posts typically once a day to one social network platform. These will do the heavy lifting and you can add your own engagement if you want to begin building community. This is a range that can accommodate many small or start-up businesses.
In the $201-$500 @ month category, you are going to get a hybrid of the $100-$200 offerings. It will includes more posts spread across multiple platforms and will also provide a level of metrics for your efforts. There is likely to be a level of engagement involved from the agency handling these tasks for you. It will definite increase you visibility and provoke (or should) more engagement from your community.
Prices definitely go up from here and can go to the tens of thousands of dollars a month. Typically, there are campaigns around these that are designed to drive traffic, deepen relationships and include sales conversions. The reason that there is a wide variance is dependent on the number of social networks you want to have a presence on (don’t spread yourself too thin), the velocity that you want to increase your presence and the ability to make tweaks to optimize the results. These campaigns will definitely strengthen your brand and broaden the awareness around it. This is where it can become tricky because sometimes the ROI (Return On Investment) isn’t always directly attributable to the efforts made on your behalf social media wise.
Your takeway…
The management of your social media for your company/brand is not something you should take lightly or do based on price alone. Make sure that the people you are dealing with understand your business and what your objectives are before embarking on having a presence. The returns are a “cumulative effort” in that one post or tweet is not something you are going to be able to point to and indicate that is where the business came from. Probably like pounding on a rock, it is the last strike that cracks it, but all of the other strikes were necessary in order for that to happen. And if you don’t feel comfortable with the people doing the work on your behalf, trust your gut. Don’t let a low price have you make a bad decision that you are going to regret. When done well, social media can be a game changer for your business. Finally, just because you may not use or believe in social media, your customers feel otherwise. It is a tool that every business needs in their tool box.