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How Costly is Do-It-Yourself Social Media Marketing?

The answer: Just as with other types of marketing, there really is no end to the money you could spend on social media marketing. It all depends on what you want, on how much you want.

Many of the social media sites have free registration and don’t charge you to submit content.

"Great,"you think, "that means I should be able to get social media checked off my list inexpensively and move on to the next thing." The problem with this is that good and profitable social media is not a one time marketing campaign, nor is it as simple as putting up a Facebook page but never updating or optimizing it and saying you have a "social media presence." This would be equivalent to me saying I’m in the furniture business because I have a couch in our office waiting room. (Reference my recent article, "I Tried Social Media Marketing And It Didn’t Work For Me, Why?")

I recently read a comment on Linked In where the commenter said they didn’t consider knowing how to set up a Facebook page and a Twitter account a real job. The response I instantly thought of was, "If only it was that easy." Social Media Marketing is intense and ongoing. People often underestimate the cost of do-it-yourself social media marketing

Here are some things that will cost you both time and money, but that you should consider if you are going to pursue social media marketing.

Production & Optimization:

Creating Accounts

Status Sites - We usually set up 10-12 status site accounts for our clients, including a Facebook Page and Twitter account, among others. (Accounts are usually free, your time to set them up costs ??)

Video Sites - We usually set up 10-12 Video Site accounts for our clients, including Youtube among others. (Accounts are usually free, your time to set them up costs ??)

Blogs & Article Sites - We usually set up a custom blog with Wordpress and 10-12 Article Sites. (Most accounts are free. You may want to host your blog though, which is about $5-$10/month)

Website - We usually review our clients websites for optimization. (Depends on the site, $500 - $5000, $5-$100/monthly)

Places - Setting up and optimizing places for your search engine ranking. ($500-$1500 Setup, $250-$500/monthly)

Optimize above mentioned accounts

Graphic Design - For backgrounds on sites like YouTube & Twitter, as well as welcome pages such as a Facebook page. ($60-$75/hr)

Profile Creation - Create full bios, and other profile content for each account. (Your time to create info + content/grammatical review if you want)

Layouts / Design - Arranging layouts on accounts and blogs efficiently so the customer feels at home. (Time + Know-how + plus any template purchase or graphic design costs)

Generate Material

Generate Video for Video Sites - (Depends on what type of videos you are producing, $100/hr & up)

Generate Articles for Blog and Article Sites - ($25 & up /per article)

Generate frequent Status Updates - (Your Time for writing & submitting + plus knowing how to write good status updates)

Generate Promotional and Incentive Material, such as coupons, discounts, specials, etc - (Cost of discount + coupon design + submission/coordination with overall campaign)

Uploading Material

Uploading video to video sites - (Your time)

Submitting articles to your blog, and article sites - (Your time)

Submitting your status updates to all the status sites - (Your time)

Maintenance

Regularly creating new content, such as videos, articles, updates, incentives - (See above)

Updating your status frequently, not letting your investment become

dormant - (Your Time)

Engaging with your followers on a frequent basis to encourage them to continue to follow you and get them to become word of mouth promoters of your business - (Your Time)

Seek out new followers regularly - (Your Time)

Answer questions and respond to feedback - (Your Time)

Stay on top of trends, so that you can take advantage of them - (Your Time)

As you can see there is really no limit to the amount you can spend. These are just some of the basics to consider. There is much more you could do in the way of Social Media Marketing, such as e-mail and text messaging campaigns, pay per click campaigns, etc.

Social Media Marketing is like any other industry, real estate for example. You could try to sell your house by yourself, but why would you when you could hire a real estate agent who is an expert in that area and will likely get more bang for your buck. (Over 80% of people who attempt to sell their homes themselves end up listing their home with a real estate agent.)

If you’re excited about the opportunities of social media marketing, but don’t feel confident enough, or you're to busy to tackle it on your own, we’d love to help with a free consultation. Or if you want to tackle this on your own, we offer a free white paper to help you get started, which you can find at our website. (http://BeSightedSocialMarketing.com)

Please note that all prices given are not guaranteed but are taken from likely averages found thorough Google searches. Actual prices vary on quality & time among other factors.