A Social Media Manager is a person who can help you gain further online visibility: When you start a new business, a brand new product or when you simply feel you need more visibility on social networks.
Social Media Manager: what do they do?
The Social Media Manager is a professional figure who deals with:
- Develop the company’s content strategy (choose WHICH posts to share, WHEN to share them, plan their releases and so on)
- Create content (posts, articles to be published in the blog, infographics, images, etc …)
- Manage the company blog,
- Plan the promotion strategy,
- managing and follow the advertising campaigns,
- Respond to and manage crises (negative reviews and comments)
- Listen and respond to users,
- Propose new strategies to improve the community and increase fans.
A Social advertising campaign must be included within a strategy to achieve a goal. A professional Social Media Manager also make some graphic design and copywriting (this operation, if done well, increases visibility and decreases the investment, making the company spend less money for the single conversion).
What is the cost of a freelance Social Media Manager?
We talk about indicative costs. The gap is necessarily wide since there are figures with different professionalism and expertise. Social media manager rates for an SME: If you are a small company, you can expect to pay between € 500 and € 2000 per month for account management for 2 channels. This means two social profiles, such as Facebook and Instagram. If you need an extra channel you will probably have to add between € 250 and € 1000 more. There are also “extra” services that a Social Manager can offer you, according to your needs and requirements. The management of a corporate blog that includes sharing links on social networks, for example, could cost between € 500 and € 1200. It depends on your goal and the frequency, quality and quantity of the items you want to produce.
Social network management pricing for large companies
For larger companies, the cost of managing 2 social channels will necessarily be higher: we are talking about prices starting from € 1500 per month The corporate blog of a large company naturally requires much more attention: generally, the posts must be translated or written in different languages besides Italian, and therefore it is necessary to involve more figures, with a normal increase in costs: we are talking about 2500 € up.
Facebook page management
One thing is to manage a page by simply posting the sporadic content that the owner provides you every now and then … completely different is to plan an editorial calendar, design the posts, create them and monitor progress, respond to comments and messages from fans.
One thing that no one ever considered is the cost for the graphic creation of the posts! let’s say we need to create an image for an offer, or an ironic meme: to do so, you need even minimal graphics skills. You need to use photo editing and image processing software. High definition stock images often need to be purchased. In short, even the creation of the most stupid of images REQUIRES WORK.
Do you also need someone to moderate comments? Facebook expects user comments, so it’s safe to expect some of them too! And in that case? If I receive dozens of comments underneath a particularly engaging post, I must take time to respond. And I have to demonstrate my dialectical ability to do it in the best way, without making mistakes.
How to set the budget for social media marketing? First of all, if the Social Media Manager needs to create new social profiles, it will take some time to design and create the taglines, branding, initial content and graphics. In this case, it will take longer to create a large community. And since the expert will have to plan both organic and paid campaigns, the costs will be higher. If there are already accounts, the Social Media Marketer will just need to do a quick update before starting to work on new content. Define the number of social accounts. While most companies tend to gravitate towards Twitter + Facebook or Instagram + Facebook, there are sectors where there is a greater advantage in having LinkedIn pages, YouTube and or Pinterest. Each additional channel will increase the monthly costs. Keep in mind that eCommerce platforms like Amazon and review sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor also fall into this category!
Customer service
Often, unhappy customers vent their frustrations on social media. Brands are realizing that by actively monitoring their channels and popular review platforms, these bad experiences can be turned into positive outcomes. Social media experts can use tools to track brand mentions in real-time, be responsive, and help solve problems with good customer care. Of course, this service is considered extra. Vary types of content Social channels always need new content. Hence, blog articles, GIFs, videos, photos and other multimedia content are needed to keep follower engagement high. This means that you will have to produce this content: either by purchasing it from other suppliers or by requesting that it be created by your Social Media Manager or your internal staff (if they are qualified to create them). Social media manager cost or investment? Freelance social media management is a fundamental opportunity for any company. Especially for small or local ones. Fortunately, the industry is so expanding that it won’t be difficult for you to find an SMM that fits your goal.
Do you need a social media manager?
Contact me to see how I can help you!
