Hi everyone - new member here! I’m a web designer with a passion for just that - web design. But so many of my clients want/need social media pages, that I find I’m spending MORE and MORE time on that instead of doing what I love, which is web design. I’ve looked into a couple of social media management platforms and really like eClincher, but it would mean increasing social media maintenance costs to my clients, which I’d really rather not do. Other than that, I’d have to hire someone to take on the SM aspect of my business, which would free up my time but cut my income, as well. Just need your thoughts, ideas of how to best handle this. I know SM isn’t going anywhere and will be an integral part of my client’s businesses in addition to their website. Thanks in advance! - Lisa
Business sense would suggest that if SM is incurring a cost, it should not be costing you, but costing your client.
So whether you pay for a social media management platform, hire someone to do SM, or put in extra hours yourself, it’s going to incur a cost that needs to be passed on to the client.
So you can say to a client your site alone will cost you $x and if you would also like to have SM work there will be an additional cost of $y for that.
where (y >= (what it costs you to get SM done for them))
If it’s costing you, it’s not a viable business practice, so you either stop it, or increase the price or lose money. Those are the choices.
Thanks for your reply, Sam. And I AM currently charging my clients for additional SM maintenance, although its STILL costing me in TIME. I COULD increase what I’m charging my clients, but I cater to small and local businesses and try to keep their costs within their budget. Personally, I detest SM and see very little value it brings to most of my clients, although I only do the bare minimum in posting for them.I have tried boosted FB ads, but have not seen the results the client wanted/needed. Not to mention most of my clients do not have a designated person to interact with their visitors, so they are not getting the full “social” aspect of the platforms they market on. I guess I need to poll my clients and see how they feel about it, then decide if its worth my time to continue offering it as a service on a SMM platform, or turn it over to someone else to handle. Thanks for giving me some choices to consider!
Depending on what all the client expects you to do in SMM, there are a few ways to go about it. But most important is that you need to quantify what you will do for the client. Fix 2 posts per week on facebook page, 5 tweets and 3 instagram posts. It’s just an example, but make packages like these to avoid wasting too much time.
Next step would be to reduce time taken to fulfil your SMM commitments to client. Most of the time is spent in content creation. I would suggest using media monitoring tools to monitor posts of the client’s industry. It will give you access to enough content, highly specific to your client’s industry. It is commonly called Social Listening. This is what I personally do.
These 2 steps will help you manage SMM more effectively. There are more ways ofc but for starting, this should help.
I think you should hire a freelancer for managing the social media needs of your clients. If you think it won’t fit your budget, then that’s not the case as there are many websites like Upwork and Guru where you can find someone in your estimated budget. Apart from that, you can also hire a Business Process Management company. If you live in UK or USA, then hiring someone from a Asiatic nation will cost less.
Hi Lisa
You could hire a teenager or a student will you cost less than an adult.
Regards