Social media posting is a time-consuming activity, and you will probably have to hire someone to do it for you. If you post manually, you can expect to spend between 30 minutes and an hour per day at the computer. If you use social media scheduling software, the amount of time required will vary according to how much work the software does for you, but it could still be around 5 hours per week.
Tread very carefully here. I’ve had a lot of experience with this sort of thing and I’ve seen many startups get into trouble by underestimating the cost of social media posting. Social media is not free and will take up quite a bit of your valuable time if you’re not careful.
It’s time for a new post about the cost of social media. The last time I wrote about this, in May, I said that I was spending twelve hours per month on social media. That figure is now up to fifteen hours, despite my best efforts. In fact, it’s even worse than that, because writing the blog post counted as one of those hours. So I really spend sixteen hours per month on social media.
A reader who questioned my calculations pointed out a problem with them. I had calculated how much time I spent on Facebook and Twitter by adding up how much time each platform demanded, but not counting how much time they shared. So it was possible that I was counting twice as many hours as were actually spent.
The reader’s comment led me to realize that Facebook and Twitter are so intertwined in my life that they really need to be considered a single element of online activity. So if I want to calculate how much time is spent on social media, it makes sense to add up all the time spent on both platforms and divide by two. On this basis, it turns out that I spend eighteen hours per month on social media (or twenty-four hours if you count writing about it).
Social media can be a powerful tool to drive sales, but it also has significant costs.
As an example, we’ll look at the costs of posting on Facebook and Twitter. We’ll use numbers from our own company, SocialToo, as a case study.
SocialToo makes software that allows you to do your own social media marketing using social media automation tools. We have just under 1,000 followers on Facebook and about 3,000 followers on Twitter.
SocialToo spent $907 for ads on Facebook in July 2014. Assuming the same number of page likes for August ($1,000), SocialToo would spend about $829 in August for ads. That’s $1,816 per month or $22,532 per year. And that assumes no growth in the number of fans each month (a pretty safe assumption).
The total cost of posting to Facebook once per day is $22,532 per year.* A lot of people think social media marketing is free, but it’s not.
And that figure doesn’t include the cost of maintaining and running those Facebook pages. It doesn’t include the time spent monitoring engagement or responding to customer questions and comments.** It doesn’t include the time spent scheduling posts for Twitter or other channels
People often wonder whether they need to hire a social media manager. The answer is yes, but the cost will be more than you think.
You probably do not know anyone who can make social media work for your business. You are much like everyone else: you know that social media is an important part of marketing today, and you know that you should have a presence on at least one channel, but beyond that, you’re lost.
How can this be? After all, if you have ever posted anything on Facebook or LinkedIn, then you already have experience with social media. So why pay someone else to help you?
The answer is simple: posting on social media is much more time-consuming than people think. It’s not that the time is difficult to estimate; it’s that most people underestimate it drastically. When I tell them how much time it takes to post on all the different channels they use and how often they need to post, almost every person who hires me says, “I had no idea it was so much.”
In this article, I will discuss some of the costs you may incur from using social media.
What is Social Media?
Social media sites are basically content sharing platforms that let users share their thoughts, opinions and images with others on the same platform. Your friends get to read your posts (comments) and ‘like’ them too. There are many social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, SnapChat, Pinterest and many more. Some of them are for business purposes only.
TIP: You can make use of any social media site for free, but you must have a professional looking profile with an attractive photo and a catchy bio in order to get readers to follow you. Also, ensure that your posts are related to your business or niche so that they can find you easily when they search for it.
The major social networks like Facebook and Twitter allow businesses to create official pages where users can follow the company’s activities. However, if you are going for business purpose then be prepared to invest some money into these networks because it is important to get in as many people’s feeds as possible.
And don’t forget Twitter chats which are really good sources of traffic and potential customers. These chats are usually hosted by someone who is well-known in the
In the past few years, social media has become an essential marketing tool for business owners. Many companies have increased their marketing budget to include more social media advertising and outreach. However, many do not realize that social media marketing isn’t free.
Social media marketing can be a very effective way to reach consumers, but it is important to know how much you are spending. If you don’t track your expenses and monitor your return on investment (ROI), you could be losing money.
