How much does social media cost? Sometimes followed by the “What’s the ROI of Social Media?”
For this blog post, we’re going to focus on a version of these questions. In reality, what you should be wondering is, “What does social media cost ME and my business?” Here’s why:
We’re all in business to help others and make money. Many times, we entrepreneurs fall into a trap of trying to save money in order to make money. While this concept is admirable – in some areas, this is not to your benefit.
I’ll give you a personal example of this. eJenn Solutions was just starting out and much like every business, money coming in was tight. Accounting was a part of my business that I literally despised. Not the money coming in or out part – but the whole tracking, reporting and the IRS part. I hated it and hated dealing with it … much less like spending large amounts of money to get it done. That was money being taken away from things for my business and my lifestyle! I could do it or find someone cheap to do it.
I found someone within my low budget and she was great. She really was, but here is what I realized… she was doing a function. She was relying on me (the person who disliked accounting) to provide her with all the information on my business – including the larger picture. So while she filled out the forms right, sent in the forms correctly, did all of the process – she was not helping me GROW my business. Why? … because I didn’t pay her to do that. I wanted someone to just do the process and at the cheapest price possible.
Guess what happened… I ended up with a huge bill due to the IRS. THAT … that was the point I realized I needed to invest in an accounting firm that understood how my business was growing and how to help me achieve my business growth goals. I searched and searched and found the perfect accountant. The next year, the new accounting firm bill was staggering (to me) but SO worth the money. My business is back on track and in growth mode as well as having past years cleaned up for me. Worth every penny! On top of it all … I do less of the accounting, which saves me time. As my business grows, her firm will be taking over pretty much all of our accounting. …. giving me more time to concentrate on my business sales and operations.
The key to this story is to identify those pieces you may not be passionate about in your business and learn how to delegate that out. If not just for your own sanity, but also for your pocketbook.
How Much Does Doing Social Media Cost a Business?
This example is best for small business models – but can easily be adjusted for any sized business. As a solo entrepreneur – let’s say you dedicate 1.5 hours a day to commit to your business’s social media work. This includes creating a blog post once a week, finding outside content to share, creating graphics, posting on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google (Google my Business) and Instagram. Personally – I think 1.5 hours a day is a little low when you add it in … but let’s go with that for this example!
1.5 hours a day of time x 5 days a week = 7.5 hours a week spent on social media work
7.5 hours a week x 4 weeks a month = 30 hours a month
If you make $100K a year (roughly $8000/month) that breaks down to $1500/month of your time!
Even if you are making $50k a year (roughly $4000/month) that breaks down to $750/month of your time!
You are in essence spending that amount of money currently on your social media.
That’s just the “doing” time for your social media work.
What’s Your Social Media Knowledge Level?
Next step, have you been keeping up on the latest trends and best practices of each site? Do you know how many hashtags work well on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? … added to that … do you know what a hashtag is and how to use it effectively? No?? … let’s add hours of monthly research to the totals above for you to figure out how to do those posts effectively for your business.
This is why when we introduce our $147/month social media package and people say it’s too expensive, we kind of have to chuckle, because we realize that they haven’t figured out their actual cost of social media work yet. The great thing about our packages is that we work with businesses from the point they just need someone to “do” the work all the way up to the big campaigns when your business is ready for the “next step” in online marketing! … and we LOVE growing with growing companies!
