How much does social media management cost?
It’s a story as old as time. You’ve got your hands full running your thriving, successful business. You get that being online and growing a social following is important, but ain’t nobody got time for that. It’s time to look at hiring a social media manager.
Listen, we totally get it. Trawling through the endless options of agencies and freelancers can be overwhelming - especially for small businesses with limited budgets. But to put it simply, there is no solid answer when it comes to the average cost of social media marketing.
Think of your social media as a pair of shoes. A cheaper pair will still get you around in the short term, but those boots with the higher price tag are better value - they’re more durable, higher-quality and just so gosh-darn comfortable.
Sure, you can ask your darling niece to manage your social media for a hundred bucks or so (she uses Instagram, right?), but can she strategically create the same impact a qualified professional can? Can she generate leads for your business through social media? Perhaps not.
So how much does social media management cost? That depends on a few things. Read on to discover what factors influence the cost of social media marketing.
What influences the cost of social media management?
Experience and expertise
Our founder, Chanelle, has been in the marketing industry for over ten years in a range of marketing roles - sales, ad operations, strategy, campaign management – you name it. And not to brag or anything, but she also graduated from UNISA with a degree in Communication Science and is a certified Copywriter with the AAA School of Advertising.
So why are we mentioning this? Because a fully-fledged social media manager will have the expertise to create an effective social media strategy to help you reach your business goals. And don’t stress about any hiccups or unforeseen issues - someone like Chanelle has seen and done it all before. So they will have the experience to smooth things out.
Read: ‘Website copywriter – Six reasons why it’s a good idea to invest in a good copywriter for your website' here.
Resources
Freelancers are the lone wolves of social media. They’re more cost-effective because they work alone, but they may also lack the resources a big-scale agency has.
For example, our content creator Morgan often travels on-site to take photos and videos for our clients’ socials, while Chanelle and head copywriter Kate hang back at the head office to work on their content. This means we can produce personalised, higher-quality content in far less time than a lone freelancer - helping you to answer the age-old question, how much does social media management cost?
Tools
Planning on managing your socials yourself? It might be cheaper, but get used to manually doing EVERYTHING - from uploading posts, stories and reels to organising and planning your monthly content. And trust us, all that manual work takes a lot of time and energy.
Social media agencies have access to various tools to streamline the content creation process. At NINKI, we use scheduling tools like Later and project management tools such as Asana that make life easier for us and help us create timely, strategic content that publishes at the most optimal times.
Credentials
Would you go to a doctor that didn’t have the proper credentials? No way. So why would you hire a social media manager who didn’t continuously improve and upgrade their knowledge?
A less-expensive social media manager may not have the fancy-schmancy titles, but have they done the research to keep them ahead of the game? That’s why the gals at NINKI work hard to constantly refresh their expertise with several training courses. Now we can proudly say things like, ‘We’re MailChimp certified!’ and ‘We’ve just received our Social Media certification from Hubspot!’
So what’s our point, then? And just how much does social media management cost? When it comes to social media management, you get what you pay for. Paying a premium price for your social media marketing isn’t just another cost - it’s an investment in your business and its future. And who doesn’t want the very best of the best?
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