The power of social media has never been greater and any successful business, large or small, needs to consider what part it will play in their marketing strategy. No one is looking in telephone directories or at the classified ads these days – we are all browsing online and often hear about products or services via social media.
Here are five reasons why hiring a skilled professional to manage your social media marketing could be the best investment you make this year.
1) Save time
Social media is a fantastic engagement tool which is free to use. That’s great! No printing costs, advertising costs or line rental. But it costs time. Your time! Who can produce engaging content and interact on several different sites several times a day whilst running a business?
If you are spending eight hours a week managing your social media presence that’s a whole day out of your schedule. By hiring a skilled social media freelancer to do in two hours what would have taken you eight, you gain back a day at a fraction of the cost. You can get on with pouring all your energies into your business while they take care of the social media side.
2) Hire expertise
The world of social media changes fast with new platforms sprouting up all the time. Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Pinterest, Snapchat, Whatsapp, Youtube, Vine, Instagram – learning your way around all of these, or at least being aware of what they can offer your business, can be a full time job in itself.
But it doesn’t have to be a time consuming headache. This is something a skilled freelancer can help you with. Someone well versed in all the different platforms out there can get your social media marketing campaign up and running in a quarter of the time you can and advise which ones are right for you.
3) Hiring a freelancer has never been easier
It may be tempting to cut costs in the short term by thinking you can manage all your social media yourself but this is a risky strategy. There is a whole army of talented people out there looking for flexible freelance work and it’s never been easier to find them.
The beauty of hiring a freelancer is the flexibility they offer. Social media marketing can be managed remotely from quite literally anywhere which makes it the ideal task to outsource to a skilled professional. You can hire someone to work for as many or as few hours as you need without the hassle or responsibility of hiring a permanent employee.
4) Outsourcing is nothing new
Delegating work is a vital part of any successful business. No one can do everything themselves or they would burn out pretty quickly. Do you have an accountant? A cleaner? Does someone design and produce your advertising when you need it? If you wouldn’t spend time on these activities why spend it on running your own social media marketing?
The brave new world of social media can be deceptive. With the keyboard at your fingertips and access to a Facebook and Twitter account within seconds many people make the mistake of thinking they can do it easily themselves. But getting your social media strategy wrong can be costly as theseexamples show.
5) Build your audience
Make your business more social and you make it more visible. Build followers, likes, an audience and they add credibility and trust to your brand. The simple fact is people judge your business at the click of a mouse these days. The more Twitter followers and Facebook likes you have, the more trust people place in what you can offer.
But you don’t need to spend precious time learning the ins and outs of Pinterest, Vine and Instagram. There are plenty of freelancers out there who know these platforms inside out and with a skilled social media professional at the helm, you are likely to quickly see an increase in traffic to your site. And if you have a creative social media campaign which goes viral you have struck gold!
Sound like a good idea? Why not get started and post a project on weliketowork.com now!
