How much does social media cost? If you're a business owner taking care of social media yourself, it costs you ZERO dollars. What it does cost is your time. Plenty of management companies, large and small are willing to charge your exorbitant fees for managing your social media. It should never cost you $100 an hour for someone to set up your Facebook. If you are, you either live in Hon Kong where the cost of living is insane or you're being had. I work for attorneys who bill well over $100 an hour. Even though they're billing at a much higher rate they have overhead including office space, administrative fees, software licencing, etc. My overhead is my data usage and part time child care. Managing social media is not rocket science and it shouldn't cost a small fortune.
Every business has to weigh the cost of using in house time vs outsourcing. If you choose to take care of business in house you have to calculate the cost of time. How much time are you going to devote to social platforms? What else would you do with your time if not social media; i.e. what are you taking time away from to spend on social media? If you factor your time vs cost of out sourcing and your time is better spent with your family or billing clients then you should hire or delegate someone else. If you're more comfortable handling it yourself or have time to spare then you should do as much as you can yourself. Spend your time researching the best methods and connecting with your clients/customers. Set up some Google alerts and get to know the people in your online community. If you choose to delegate you need to make sure you're comfortable with your employees taking company time to work on Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, etc. Of course, you should encourage your employees to engage your customers online in a professional manner, and you should allow them to do this on company time.
If you choose to outsource your social media management you need to be aware of a few things: cost, experience, and strategy. Social media management is not writing code. Code writing is difficult and mind numbing and those who do it should be paid handsomely. Do you contract someone on a monthly basis or pay them hourly? That depends on what you're hiring them to do. Are they devising strategy? Are they posting or tweeting? If you just need someone to post your thoughts or comments, you should pay hourly, if they're devising and implementing marketing strategy you may want to consider a monthly contract. Are they experience in marketing, online media, advertising, and so on? If you can find someone who has experience working with web developers, advertisers, and social media you've got a good one. Even if their experience is limited to social media platforms you've at least got someone who knows it better than you, and if you're paying them, they had better. Someone with a marketing background who manages your online presence will only benefit you. They should be able to devise your online strategy and efficiently implement that same strategy.
Whether you decide to tackle the online community yourself or out source the work, at least you're in the game. Those businesses who ignore social media do so at their own peril. Your competition is talking to your clients and potential clients and if you're not there to participate you will lose out.
This information should give you an idea of where to start and hopefully it raises lots of questions for you, which I am happy to help you answer. Leave me a comment or email me katie@ncmediadiva.com. Thanks for reading
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