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How much does it cost to outsource Social Media Marketing?

Average Price
$500 - $850 per month

How much does Social Media Marketing cost?

Need some help getting your brand in front of people quickly and easily but unsure how much a social media marketing consultant will cost? Read on to find out how much you’ll pay for social media marketing depending on your requirements.

What are the benefits of Social Media Marketing? 

Social media marketing is the practice of promoting your business or cause online at scale, through social media platforms. The most common platforms include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. Though Pinterest, Tik Tok, Snapchat and Reddit are also highly used.

Social media marketing aims to reach a greater audience and connect with them through meaningful content. Social media marketing agencies or freelancers will plan content, schedule it and monitor the results. By looking to see what works for your platform, a social media marketing expert can streamline your goals with the content that gets put out across your social media channels. 

Their expertise can also create successful paid advertising campaigns. This can help you reach a wide audience quicker versus organically building traffic across your pages.

How much does a Social Media Marketing service cost? 

Social media marketing costs vary depending on the service you require and how frequently you need it. To make life a little easier, we’ve calculated the average cost based on prices across Canada:  

Average cost (per month)$500 - $850
Minimum cost (per month) $170 - $340
Maximum cost (per month) $1,000 - $2,000+

Cost considerations 

No two social media projects are the same! The overall price will be determined by a range of factors, including: 

  • Pricing structure - hourly rates vs monthly packages

  • Professional’s experience 

Pricing structure - hourly rates vs monthly packages 

Type of social media management (monthly)Highest average priceLowest average price
Basic$340$170
Average$850$500
Comprehensive$2,000+$1,000
Type of social media management (hourly)Highest average price (per hour) Lowest average price (per hour)
Basic$30$25
Average $50$35
Comprehensive$85$70

Social media marketing agencies and professionals tend to either charge on an hourly basis or as a monthly fee, depending on the service. 

For very basic services, you could get social media marketing for as little as $25 per hour! On the other end of the scale, you could end up paying up to $2,000+ per month or more for a full package. This could include customer service, feed management and expert level designers and copywriters who would create your monthly content. 

Most business owners opt for an average monthly package, which ranges between $500 and $850 a month. This would include the generating of content and some feed support, but wouldn’t be as in-depth as what other packages can provide. 

Though, the beauty of social media marketing is it’s customizable to your needs. So, it’s possible to start small and build up the level of support you need, or even scale back services that aren’t needed.  

Professional’s experience 

The level of expertise and experience your social media marketer has will also impact the cost. Some social media marketing agencies have copywriters, designers, developers and statisticians who may all work together on each client. On the other end of the scale, it’s also possible to find someone who attempts each of these attributes themselves, which may work out cheaper if budget is your main concern. 

Remember, don’t start looking for a social media marketer until you have a clear understanding of what you hope to achieve. That way, you can align your needs with the correct expert for the job. 

Other considerations:

If you’re new to the world of social media marketing, here’s some food for thought when planning your social media strategy: 

  • Your social media marketing goals 

  • Social media channels

  • Monthly content creation

  • Customer service 

  • Feed management 

  • Paid advertising

  • Compiling stats and generating reports 

Your Social Media Marketing goals 

If used right, social media is a powerful tool that can place your brand in front of a vast audience and build a meaningful relationship with them. 

Identifying your goals will help streamline your efforts. For example, do you want to increase page followers? How about boost sales of a particular service you offer? 

Most businesses have multiple goals, which may change depending on the time of year or the needs of the business itself. Each goal will require a particular strategy to be developed to be able to reach it. 

Social media channels 

If your business is small or in its initial stages of growth, then you may not currently have social media accounts. Or, you might be unsure which platforms would suit your business, and allow you to reach your target audience the best. 

Social media marketing can help you get started, or pick up from where you’re currently at. Price-wise, the more content that needs to be generated in terms of platform types and frequency, the more expensive it will be. However, given the idea of marketing is to generate a return, if done correctly your social media marketing will produce a healthy ROI. 

Facebook

Facebook has 2.7 billion users, making it an excellent place to implement a social media marketing strategy. The expert you choose should be well versed in Facebook as a whole, but more specifically Facebook Ads, as managing digital advertising budgets is very important. 

Engagement is a huge part of how Facebook works too. Aside from replying to customers, you need to be liking and sharing content, and getting your users to do the same with your content. This will only happen if your content is generally relevant and engaging to your audience. 

Twitter

Twitter is all about succinct messaging and clever use of imagery. People can either like or retweet anything you post. Using hashtags and tags correctly is a powerful way to boost the reach of your tweets. 

Twitter also has an ads platform. It’s not as complex as Facebook but still requires a knowledgeable approach to hit the right audience. You’ll need to consider the content of your messaging and the time at which it goes out to achieve success. 

Instagram

Instagram is all about the visuals, in the form of video and image content. Plus, each post requires an engaging piece of copy underneath, that also makes use of hashtags and tagging. 

It’s also possible to sell products through Instagram and build brand pages. This can be facilitated through the ‘promotions’ function. You can arrange to promote particular products or services, that your social media marketing expert will launch and monitor for you. 

YouTube

The market is becoming increasingly saturated with video content. As a business, it’s one of the best ways to promote your services. For example, a mechanic could upload a ‘how-to’ guide on how to change a tyre. The video itself can be monetized, meaning you’ll earn money for each view. However, you can also leave your contact details in the description box so that customers can find you. 

YouTube videos can be shared on social media or embedded into your blog pages. Though it takes skill to capture engaging video content, edit it and then share it correctly. Elements of SEO also come into play here, which is why it’s best to leave your YouTube videos to a social media marketing expert. 

Monthly content creation

The main portion of social media marketing relates to the generating and scheduling of content. Depending on your business, you may want a post to go out across all feeds every day. Though some businesses increase this to every hour throughout the day. Your agency or freelancer will help you work this out, by checking your analytics to see when your followers are most active. 

It’s important to strike the right balance between creating content that’s both relevant to your business but also engaging to a general audience. From decisive polls to humorous posts, there’s a lot more to getting social media right than is first apparent. That’s why your monthly content needs to be on point.

Customer service

If you own an online business or eCommerce store, then you may require customer support as part of your social media marketing package. This includes replying to customers who message you and leave comments on your page in a prompt and timely manner. It can be very time-consuming to provide this service yourself, which is why many businesses outsource this to a social media marketing or customer service expert instead. 

Feed management

Never forget that social media is a public platform. People are free to post almost anything, which may include spam or offensive content. That’s why you must have somebody closely monitoring your feeds to remove such content before it has the chance to negatively impact your feed as a whole. 

This also extends to aspects such as negative reviews, which all businesses will encounter to some degree. Such issues require a thoughtful approach to how the situation is dealt with, as an unprofessional reply could cause more harm than good. Social media experts are well versed in all aspects of feed management, which will help protect your business image and work to resolve any issues constructively. 

Paid advertising

Most social media platforms have paid advertising options such as Facebook ads. Understanding how to create campaigns successfully takes a fair bit of technical knowledge, not to mention mathematical ability. Otherwise, you could throw large sums of money on advertising that doesn’t work or even gets rejected by the platform. 

Therefore, understanding paid advertising is an important aspect of social media marketing. Your social media marketing professional will help you to establish a target audience and a budget. The costs for paid advertising are agreed upon in advance, and you can tailor the reach for your budget. 

Compiling stats and generating reports

As well as generating content for your social media, your chosen freelancer or agency will need to compile stats and generate reports about the progress of your campaigns. For example, how many followers you have gained since they took over your feeds. Or, how many users your paid advertising reached and how many conversions this generated for the business.

This type of service is more comprehensive but is the best way of determining what is working for your social media feeds and what isn’t. It’s also a great opportunity for them to share ideas about what could work for upcoming posts, based on how previous content has performed. 

Getting a Social Media Marketing expert - is it worth the cost? 

If you lack the time or knowledge to market your business successfully through social media, then getting an expert on board is well worth the investment. They will plan your monthly content, schedule it and monitor how successful each post is. If you require paid advertising via social, then you’ll need an expert to ensure your money is well spent. 

Given how important social media is for creating an audience, it pays to have yours taken care of by someone who not only knows what they are doing but is genuinely passionate about it too. That’s why social media marketing experts are well worth the investment. 

Watch your social media stats skyrocket with the help of a reliable Social Media Marketing expert on Bark. 

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