Your options can be hiring an intern, freelancers, employee, small marketing company or large corporate marketing agency. Each of these options has its own set of pros and cons.
I would like to help you make this decision by looking at each individual option.
“Let’s just hire a college intern”
One of the biggest problems with hiring a college intern, is usually they have no real business experience. Most often their lack of real world work experience, so instead of maximizing your time on other important business you will spend your valuable time answering intern questions and constantly correcting or reviewing their work, interns can cost you a lot of time and time is money.
Pros Intern Hire
□Free or very low cost (Cash payment wise)
Cons Intern Hire
□Little to no true business experience
□Little to no true experience using social media to grow your business
□Constant oversight, time loss to review work performed
□Temporary position. Once they have gained a few months experience they leave to seek good paying positions.
Maybe A Social Media Freelancer Would Be A Better Fit?
A social media freelancer is similar to a consultant.
Typically, a freelancer will charge an hourly wage to render services on a project or to provide service to your company. For example, and freelancer with 3+ years of experience on average will cost $45/hr.
If you want real results from social media, you need to be active on your sites daily or multiple posts per day. Therefore, assuming it takes a freelancer one hour per day to post and create content on your behalf your costs could be:
$45/her per day x 5 days a week x 4 weeks a month = $900/mo. X 12/mo. = $10,800 per year for freelancer to handle your social media.
Pros freelancer hire
□More flexibility. Freelancers are more flexible to move from project to project.
□Lower cost than in house employee (Employer does not have to pay employment tax or benefit package)
Cons freelance hire
□No loyalty, freelancers sell their services to the highest bidder (incl. your competition)
□Reliant on one person. If he/she is sick or busy your social media may go on hold.
□No Oversight. There is little to no transparency on how the work is actually being done.
Important note: With the Freelance work experience matters. Hiring an inexperienced freelancer can be like hiring an intern.
“So, what about the in-house full-time employee?”
The great benefit of hiring an employee is that you control the employees quality, time, and per day activities. You are able to build in a position or team who job is centered on social media marketing duties.
However, you are already business owners so you understand that adding a new position is not an easy task.
You will need to develop a training method, day to day process and oversight for the employee. Which means it could take months before you are ready to get in the social media marketing game.
On the low end you can expect to pay $35k per year in salary. This is approximately $3500 per month when you include employment taxes and benefits.
$3500/mo. x 12 = $42,000 per year for a full-time employee
Pros in-house employee
□Committed to working for your organization
□100% oversight on work performed per day
The great benefit of hiring an employee is that you control the employees quality, time, and per day activities. You are able to build in a position or team who job is centered on social media marketing duties.
Cons in-house employee
However, you are already business owners so you understand that adding a new position is not an easy task.
□You will need to develop a training method, day to day process and oversight for the employee. Which means it could take months before you are ready to get in the social media marketing game.
□On the low end you can expect to pay $35k per year in salary. This is approximately $3500 per month when you include employment taxes and benefits.
□$3500/mo. x 12 = $42,000 per year for a full-time employee
“So, what about the small marketing firm?”
The small marketing company typically caters to other small business owners. Most of these companies try to provide as much value to the client at the most reasonable rate possible.
Which offers you a hybrid of the freelancer and the full time employee; you get the best of both worlds. They usually offer several packages to work with your budget and needs.
The mission of the small marketing company is to grow clientele; therefore you will find they are more committed to helping your company grow.
The cost for a GOOD small marketing company can range from $400 – $1500 per month depending on what services you need.
So, the lower package
$400/mo. X 12/mo. = $4,800 per year.
The higher end package
$1500/mo. X 12/mo. = $18,000 per year.
Pros small marketing company
□Several pricing options, packages to suit your needs
□Low to mid-level cost is still more cost effective than hiring in house or freelancer
□Can move package levels easily from month to month
□Not reliant on one person.
□Committed to your organization, results focused
□Some oversight, you will be able to have access to a social media manager directly
□Company has experience working with other small businesses
□No employment taxes or benefits
Cons small marketing company
□Not 100% oversight you will not be able to know what happens behind scenes daily.
□Most companies require 6-12 month contract
Buyer beware there are plenty of inexperienced small marketing companies on the web.
It is important to ask if the company has in house (on staff) social media managers. This is to prevent hiring a company that is just outsourcing work to freelancers.
“So, How about the Corporate marketing Agency?”
These larger corporate agencies typically work with other large corporate companies. They are well known for offering a full-service range of marketing services for their clientele. Therefore, they have many employees working together on multiple client campaigns.
This is GREAT! Especially is you have a large multifaceted business. Because each employee working on the campaign can strategize and execute their ideas into the project.
However, when dealing with large agencies because they have many projects to work on for many companies often they are slow to respond to your personal requests.
The Math
A GOOD corporate marketing company you will pay $15,000,mo.
$15,000/mo. X 12 mo. = $180,000 per year for corporate marketing firm
Pros Corporate Marketing Company
□Several employees great for idea sharing and development
□Not reliant on one person, you will have several social media managers to contact
□Long term commitment to your business
□Full service marketing services offered with one company
□No employment taxes or benefits needed
Pros Corporate Marketing Company
□Not very flexible, because you will be dealing with so many people changes to campaigns can be difficult.
□Not 100% oversight you will not be able to know what happens behind the scenes daily.
□Most big corportate companies require 12- 24 month contracts.
How much does social media marketing costs?
Intern | Freelancer | Full-Time
Employee |
Small Marketing Company | Corporate Marketing Company | |
Cost | Free | $900/mo. | $3500/mo. | $400-1500/mo. | $15,000/mo. |
Pro | Free | Flexibility | Quality Control | Experience | Employees |
Cons | No Exp | One Person | Cost | No Oversight | Cost |
Use | Anyone | Anyone | Based on Experience | Small Businesses | Large Multi-faceted companies |
Every option has different costs and benefits to your business.
Interns are free but can suck up your time and time is money.
Freelancers are great for outsourcing projects but are less committed.
In-house employee offers you more control, but your business will be creating an additional position.
The small social media marketing company offers great pricing options and personalized business service offerings.
Corporate marketing companies offer the most comprehensive services but can be slow and expensive.
“Should I Hire My Social Footprint ?”
If you are looking for a small social media marketing company to manage all your social media business needs and get real results in return contact us today.
We will regularly post fun and educational content to your business pages. This type of regular content posting will create more brand awareness, visibility, and engagement with existing clients and their family and friends. There is nothing bigger right now to keep people connected and “liking” and “sharing” information about your business.
Allow My Social Footprint to keep your business the topic of conversation on social media.
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