How much does social media marketing for business cost?

How much does social media marketing for business cost? What does it include?

Social media is the fastest-growing part of the Internet marketing world. It is thought to be one of the most powerful tools to grow your audience, engage potential customers, promote mission and tone. A successful social media marketing strategy will also increase your brand awareness and sales.

At the same time facing a badly-planned campaign can blow off your budget and even do harm to your brand reputation and lead to declining sales. Not one experienced social media manager will ever tell you that SMM promotion can be cheap and done by one single person. SMM includes a wide range of activities conducted through positioning brands, posting content and executing targeted advertising in different social media. Deciding on how much to spend can be a tricky question. In this article, we will be diving into marketing agency pricing and see what it consists of.

What is included in social media campaigns?

Social media marketing is a complex service that assists businesses with the promotion of their product or brand on social media platforms. 

First, an agency analyses your business, market and competitors. Then it comes to the strategy formation and development USP (unique selling proposition). When the positioning statement and strategy are ready, the agency moves to designing an account visual style, creating a profile on social networks from scratch, or re-design current social media pages. At the same time a content plan, based on the brand's goals and expectations, is being developed. Photographers and copywriters work on creating relevant content such as photos, videos and texts for feed and stories. Another part of the work goes to a targetologist who analyses the client's target audience, sets up, launches and manages advertising campaigns. After the launch of a campaign, the agency prepares a monthly social media report on marketing analytics and adjusts its strategy. 

Social media marketing can be provided by a freelancer SMM specialist or an agency. The price per month will differ significantly. Let us highlight the main difference between an agency and a freelancer. It is hard to imagine how even a highly experienced person can cope with all aspects of social media marketing mentioned above. He or she might not be able to efficiently complete the entire list of tasks on time and without burnout. 

In an agency, there is a whole team involved in the promotion of a client through social media networks under the project manager’s supervision. Content managers, copywriters, designers, targetologists, and photographers work together on a turnkey basis to be responsible for all areas of the project and guarantee qualified lead generation.

Agency prices are higher than freelancers’ ones. Does it mean better service?

The SMM agency charges more than a freelancer does. The client will definitely get what they are paying for. Five people working on one project in an agency against one working on his own can guarantee the effectiveness of social media management. We strongly believe it is fair to pay five specialists and let the most effective tools work for your business rather than waste your budget and expect one person to get the whole bunch of work done.

How social marketing agency pricing is being shaped?

Here is a quick social media marketing pricing guide that helps to understand the main principles of agencies’ pricing.

Hourly-based pricing is the most common among SMM agencies. It is simple for both clients and agencies. The pricing means that the cost of management depends on the hours each specialist dedicates to the project. Certain hourly rates such as market audition, content creation, maintaining accounts, and advertising are multiplied by the number of hours spent on the project. Apart from that, the client is supposed to budget for advertising according to the strategy and KPI set. 

A team of professionals working on quality promotion spends a lot of time and effort to delve into the specifics of your business, study the market and audience and come up with an applicable strategy that will grow your business and bring significant profit. Specialists will not try to hack algorithms, attract bots and fake followers. The work will be done up to the highest standards.

Freelancers offering cheap promotion will never compete with a professional team. They simply do not have enough resources to accomplish all steps required for a proper SMM campaign.   

A comprehensive approach to developing an SMM strategy and conducting promotion leads to visible and solid results in getting new leads and customers, increasing sales, brand visibility, product and service recognition. Invest in high-quality promotion led by an agency you share your approach with. It will help improve company reputation and customer loyalty. Trust the professionals and your investments will pay you back in the nearest future.