Below is a great article that encapsulates basically all the average questions and answers we get regarding social media marketing. Please read and share with your friends. 

 

Fun fact: Many online marketing agencies outsource the social media management work they charge so much for to an agency and then pocket the difference. It's called "white labeling." That is, other agencies white label their work for us to do under their brand names – they pay us to do their work, and the client never knows about it. Of course, it's smarter (and more efficient) to skip the middle man and go straight to the source.

 

 

CUT TO OUR COST: If you want to see how much Social Media Mindset charges for our services, you can scroll down or click here and go straight to our standard cost. 

 

 

How Much Does Social Media Marketing Cost?

Original post here

 

Mack Collier, one of the thought leaders of the professional social media marketing world and the writer of a fairly awesome blog, wrote a really interesting post about how much online PR costs businesses these days. The overall gist of his post: social media consultant rates are through the roof. Here's what the industry averages are (and no, we're not making any of these numbers up):

 

How Much Does Marketing With Twitter Cost?

 

Launching a new Twitter account, complete with setup and outsourcing content creation/consumer interaction (all 140 characters at a time), costs an average of $2,000-$4,000 per month – and that's just for Twitter. With that said, the total price range was $1,000-$7,500 per month.

 

What if you already have an existing Twitter account, but need some help to take it to the next level? Restructuring an existing Twitter account with "limited coaching" to achieve client goals is still going to cost you between $1,000-$2,500 per month, with some charging as much as $4,000 per month…just for Twitter! That's right, if you want Facebook, you're paying extra.

 

 

How Much Does Marketing With Facebook Cost?

 

If you thought the costs of marketing with Twitter were high, you might want to grab your fainting chair — Facebook marketing rates will give you a case of the vapors. To set up a new Facebook account and provide limited ongoing training to business partners, online PR agencies charge an average of $2,500-$5,000 per month, with some going as high as $9,000. Of course, this also includes status updates and interacting with customers. You know what it doesn't include, though? Strategy.

 

If you're shelling out a minimum of $4,500 per month for Facebook and Twitter management, you're not getting any strategy behind the efforts. That costs extra (sort of like adding bacon, but not as tasty). Now, we'll admit that the strategy is the most important part — you've got to go into social media marketing with a game plan and a list of goals, or you'll never really get anywhere. This is the reason you don't want to outsource your company's social media management to your friend's kid who is taking a class in marketing at college. Online PR agencies know this, so they make sure to charge you for their expertise. You know, in case they're not getting enough of your money already.

 

How Much Does Social Media Strategy Cost?

 

It's easy to get fake famous on social media channels, and apparently it'll only cost you $6,800. Although it may sound impressive to have 1 million "likes" on Facebook, your charade will be exposed the second somebody checks out your page and sees that nobody ever likes, comments or shares your content.

 

Creating a comprehensive strategy for social media marketing and outsourcing all work for all channels (with a minimum of two social networks) costs anywhere from $3,000-$20,000 per month, with the industry average settling between $4,000-$7,000 per month. If you want the social media agency to start the accounts from scratch and consult on a 4- to a 12-month contract, you'll pay between $3,000-$15,000 per month. What do they mean by channels, a minimum of two? That's just a fancy way of saying that the cost includes both Facebook and Twitter…I'm betting there's probably an upcharge if your company wants Google+, too.

 

If you're doing market research to figure out your customer/client's persona(s) and preferences, it's possible to legitimatize a $20,000 spend to gather the background info necessary to execute a killer social media campaign. But otherwise, you can probably get much of the same for less money.

 

Also, most of the "strategy" aspects of social media carry over from client to client. For instance, the tactics we use for a B2B client in the business coaching space aren't all that different from the tactics we use for a B2B client in the cloud computing space. In both cases, we focus on using Twitter as a PR tool to reach out to journalists who cover the space, interact with them, get on their radar and prime them for when we send an actual pitch. This way, they know who the client is before we ever officially contact them on the customer's behalf.

 

Additionally, in both B2B cases, we also use Twitter as a way to engage with thought leaders in this space – we often end up getting them to write guest content for the client's blog or quotes that can be used in a post we write ourselves. For both the business coach and the cloud service provider we also focus on interacting with current and potential clients, share client insights on industry news, etc. In fact, we use most of these same social media marketing tactics in the B2C space as well.

 

Before writing the retainer check, ask yourself what you're really getting for a $20k monthly spend on strategy alone. Are you getting a unique social media marketing strategy tailor-made for your business, or a slightly customized version of a tried-and-true method for achieving social media success? Chances are, it's the latter – and for good reason, because it works! But don't let yourself be charged extra for creating a wheel that's already been invented.

 

How Much Does an Audit of Twitter and Facebook Cost?

 

What if you just want an audit of your current social media strategy, with a few pointers on how to improve? Better bust out the AmEx, because it's going to cost you anywhere from $2,000-$10,000. The lower end of this spectrum seems reasonable, especially if you add in the cost of social media training and competitive analysis. The only way to justify a $10k spend is if the social media consultant actually flies out to your office and does an in-depth, in-person training over the course of several days.

 

If you decide to go for an ongoing social media package at a monthly rate, do not let the agency charge you extra for an audit of your current social activity. Here's the thing: any reputable social media marketing agency is going to audit your social channels in the process of coming up with a proposal. The work is being done anyway, and for the most part, it doesn't take a whole lot of time – if you don't include competitive analysis, a social media audit can be done in an afternoon.  

 

Why Does Social Media Marketing Cost So Much?

 

Don't ask us, because we don't know. We've been working in this industry for years and have represented B2B, B2C, small startups and national brands. In our experience, unless you're a national brand with a huge amount of sales it's impossible to justify these numbers. For the average startup or small business, there's very little chance you'll achieve ROI on a social campaign that costs $20,000 per month – you've really got to be doing something super special to justify the spend and generate the interest. But if your product or service is that amazing, you probably don't need to spend $20k to seed a social following. You can easily accomplish much of the same on a $5,000 budget.

 

It's important to note that the social media marketing rates listed above don't even include the cost of content, which means that you still have to pay for blogs, press releases, landing pages and all the other stuff that acts as fuel for driving your social media strategy. Sure, you can link to a lot of great articles on other websites, but what's the point of constantly directing your fans and followers to sites other than your own? Content comes first, and that costs even more.

In our minds, the average price of social media marketing is downright obnoxious. What small business owner can afford such high rates? Are solid social media campaigns limited only to startups that have major investment capital to work with? Sure, companies that have the money to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars annually on social media campaigns can afford the biggest and best in social media marketing agencies — but they can also afford the biggest and best in advertising, product placement, PR and all other types of marketing.

 

Even if you can the high cost of social media marketing through a large agency, there's no guarantee that they'll actually do the work