Social media has been a thing for a decade and a half but brands still think it’s black magic. This post explains why it ain’t so and how bringing it in-house will pay dividends.
I think it’s safe to say that day-to-day social media management for most brands isn’t difficult these days. If you’re reading this, chances are that you found it on Facebook, Twitter or some other social platform. Of course, this doesn’t necessarily make you a social media specialist but that’s okay. You don’t need to be.
Whatever the size of your business or budget, you can and should bring your day-to-day social media management in-house and here’s why:
Social media agencies are expensive
Expensive is an understatement. If you’re a large brand and you need 24/7 monitoring, you’ll probably be paying agency day rates that could be anywhere from £300 to upwards of £1,500 depending on the agency and level of service. That’s JUST for the day-to-day management of your social channels. Campaigns, design work, content… all of these things will be added on. You could build a kick-ass in-house team for that kind of money. Your already in-house marketing team would love having the extra budget to play with. Just imagine what they could do with all that extra money.
If you’re a smaller brand and you’ve only got a few thousand pounds a month (or less) to spend, you’re literally going to get a few minutes a day from an agency. Trust me, I know. I’ve worked across many accounts with budgets of varying sizes at various agencies. With the best will in the world, social media agencies with expensive overheads just can’t produce the kind of value you should expect for that kind of money. Again, a few thousand pounds a month will probably pay for an in-house social media executive.
If your budget is virtually non-existent, you can probably do everything you need to do yourself. You might not have much time but you’ll know that time equates to money and unless your day rate is higher than that of an agency, you’re throwing money away by employing one.
I don’t have time
Nobody has time to do their own marketing. I certainly don’t. However, I make sure I plan about half an hour into my day to get things done. You can even do it on your coffee break. If you don’t want to splurge out all your updates at once, there are tonnes of free tools for advance scheduling. For smaller businesses, I’d recommend Buffer for this. It’s free, easy and even allows you to track how well your posts are doing by tracking clicks on links. For larger businesses with bigger budgets, there’s a lot more available but if you hire an in-house social media manager, they will no doubt already know what the best tools and techniques are.
Doing it better
Let’s say you’ve already got an in-house social media team but you want to take your social media marketing to the next level. Perhaps you want to build your audience with high-quality followers and/or influencers. Maybe you want to drive sales for a product launch or want a campaign to drive engagement; that’s where agencies and consultants are useful. When you want to do something that’s outside of your ability or comfort zone, that’s when to get help. What social media agencies and consultants can offer is experience, specialist knowledge and resources above and beyond your own. That’s where the smart money is.
Getting started
I’m not just going to leave you dangling. If you’ve read all of the above and think it makes sense but don’t know how to get up and running, again, agencies or a consultant like myself can help you out by looking into what you want to achieve and making a plan to help you do it.
In conclusion
Day-to-day social media isn’t as hard as many agencies would like you to think but like anything, there may be aspects that you need help with. Stop wasting money on things you can do yourself and hire experts to do the experty stuff.
If you need help getting started, or want to run a kick-ass social campaign but don’t know how, get in touch and we’ll work out a plan of action that suits your budget and provides real business value. If you’re already farming your day-to-day stuff out to an agency, I can also help you transition to an in-house model. Doing it yourself doesn’t necessarily mean doing it alone.