Social Media Marketing Pricing and Hiring Decisions for Small Business Owners

In today's competitive marketplace, it's important that you have the information you need to make a great business decision for your company's marketing strategy! Below are some frequently asked questions about pricing and hiring options, as well as some questions you need to ask yourself!

What does it cost to outsource your social media marketing?

Deciding to outsource your company’s social media marketing (or any marketing) is a big decision. What makes it most daunting is when you start thinking about that big question – return on investment! Are you going to get out more than what you put in? Are you going to get anything out at all? These are tough questions to answer because there are so many variables in social media marketing and in running a business in general, but we’ve put together some guidelines on how Schmooz approaches budgeting and return on investment.

How much budget should you set aside for social media?

There are a lot of different ways to answer this question, but the most important thing is to try to make your spend match your expectations. When someone calls us and asks if a $300 or $3000 budget can get them 1 new inquiry a day from Twitter, we have to ask ourselves how they got that number. One thing you can do to prepare your own social media budget is to ask yourself the following:

• How much time are you or your current team spending on your social media? How much do you value your time or the team’s time at? If you’re time is worth $100/hour and you’re spending it on an activity that’s not getting you the business results you desire, it might be good to pay an expert to do it instead.

• What’s your current cost of customer acquisition? Do you know how much money it takes you to get one new customer right now? If you don’t have that answer yet, it’s important to recognize that a main goal of doing your social media is to learn the answer to that question. Once there is a benchmark, it is our job to replicate and improve upon that number! Since social media is always changing, having a benchmark to keep in mind really helps.

• How much is it worth to you to start to understand these metrics for your business? Beyond creating excellent content to get people talking and responding, it’s important to put a value to learning about your business.

Most of our clients at Schmooz start with a budget between $1500-$3000 each month (or around $15,000 over 6 months, or $30,000 a year) and then move up from there once there is proof that the work we agreed to is creating the desired results. If it’s not, then we either try something new together or part ways! At the end of every engagement, our hope is that we created value and learning.  We have clients who spend under $1000 each and clients who spend over $10,000 each month.

Who can you hire for your social media?

When we talk to potential clients at Schmooz, they are often considering a lot of different options for social media marketing support. Here are some of the most common options people are considering:

• Leveraging the existing skills of your in-house traditional marketing department
• Hiring a full-time employee to stay in-house
• Hiring a freelancer to use occasionally
• Hiring an agency or consultancy

We like to think of ourselves as your external social marketing department – we can be as hands-on, in the fire with you every day or be a little more hands off and fill in some gaps (usually the time consuming, detail-oriented stuff, like community management or running ads!)  One of our main benefits is that you get an entire team for the price of (or less than the salary of) one full-time employee. At $25,000/ year, if you’re getting great results and beautiful content from a team that has a variety of skill sets, that’s pretty awesome!



At Schmooz Media, we understand that customers are your best brand ambassadors. That’s why we’re excited to create custom social media marketing strategies for small businesses, and take advantage of what their customers are already saying on social media.

Schmooz Media is a Full-Service Social Media Marketing Business, helping small-mid size businesses get the most social ROI possible. We’re passionate about giving your business actionable, measurable and meaningful results. Learn more about what Schmooz can do for you, or contact us with your inquiries today.