Social media management costs for businesses

Outsourcing your social media management increases the publics awareness, generates leads, drives traffic to your website. But the issues many owners and boards have is understanding the link between the cost of outsourcing social media to another team vs how it compares to internal team posting and marketing.

Sometimes you need a little help getting the decision makers on board with the plan.  Let’s walk through the normal cost of outsourcing your social media and the difference in results you get from external agencies, freelancers, and an internal team.

What is the average cost to outsource your social media?

So this can be a broad question because there are so many social media platforms and ways to post.  It depends widely on how many services you have and what this service entails, but we will give you some general pricing based on 2023 quotes for social media we have received.

We will put this into 4 plans of actions – a full service plan, and a small business plan, a contractor plan, and and employee plan so you can get a better idea.

Social Media Full Service Plan (everything covered)

• Covers All Content Creation
• Covers All Social Media Platforms
• Covers Videos, Stories, Reels, Etc.
• Covers Daily or On-Demand Post Scheduling
• Covers Monthly Analytics
• HIGH END – $12,000 Per Month
• LOW END – $2500 per Month

Advantages to this plan is that you have professional social media coverage of every platform that knows your brand. This type of plan usually have an agency that can deliver all of this type of content without question or the need for constant meetings that take up your time. This type of package is like having your own built-in social media team without having a full-time employee.

Disadvantages are always walking the cost line between this service and a full-time employee.  Other disadvantages (depending on company) can be a lack of transparency on the backend when it comes to posting.

Social Media Small Business Plan

• Covers Up To 5 Social Media Platforms
• Covers Daily Posting To These 5 Platforms
• Covers Content Creation (images only)
• Covers Monthly Analytics
• HIGH END – $1000 Per Month
• LOW END – $200 Per Month

Advantages for small businesses are typically always related to time and money.  How valuable is your time posting daily and watching the reports, doing a/b testing and making sure this is all taken care of.  Can your time be better served elsewhere?  The answer is typically YES.  So hiring a company to do your social posting as a small business makes sense.  The cost if you shop around can be very reasonable, never go with your first quote.

Disadvantages are always cost.  Small businesses run on a tight budget so often this can impact your social media program.  Another item is that this cost vs. service ratio is often misunderstood by small business owners.  Typically if a small business owner does not see immediate results they will feel the service is not worth it.  Social media is a long game, stick with it.

Contractor Social Media Plan

• Contractors typically charge a price per post.
• HIGH END – $500 Per Post. (video or image)
• LOW END – $25 Per Post. (video or image)

Advantages are cost.  Contractors can be extremely cheap.  You can find them on Fiverr, Upwork, Bark, and other sites like this.  They will come in do a few posts and be done.

Disadvantages are that the contractor has no buy-in with the company they are working with.  They want to get the job done and get paid (typically). Also we have heard horror stories about lack of communication, no deliverables and things like that. While this might not be common, you have to really keep the reigns on your contractors to make sure you get what you want.

Salaried Employee Plan

• Many companies have marketing people in-house and some of these specialize in Social Media Posting.
• HIGH END SALARY – $100,000
• LOW END SALARY – $45000

Advantages include you have a full time dedicated employee managing your social media channels.  They can have quick turn-around for projects, be available for on-the-fly posts, etc.

Disadvantages are that it is often hard to find a social media worker who is fully skilled enough to handle the knowledge of every platform. They might be an expert on Facebook, but know nothing about TikTok.  This will widely vary depending on the salary you are paying. The primary reason we hear from business owners is the insurance and other costs associated with a full-time employee.

No matter which option you go with (or you can afford) the key to any successful social media campaign in consistency.  Social media is shown as being a viral experience all the time but the odds of this just don’t hold up.  Have your social media team schedule regular, on message posts at the optimum times each day, using call to actions, hashtags, great pictures, and a good messages. Sticking to it for the long game will be your key to success.