Only 48% of marketers report an ROI from social media, showing that a majority of businesses and entrepreneurs may not be using it properly.
When implemented correctly, social media can yield brand awareness, lead generation, conversion and revenue growth. Most social media platforms offer powerful analytics to help you understand your audience and gather insights for other marketing efforts.
Social media marketing costs vary between platforms and tactics. Regardless of what you decide to use, the cost is only worth it if you have a strategy in place. Find out how much you can expect to pay for social media marketing.
How Much Does Organic Posting Cost?
Your social media marketing budget should be split between organic and paid posting. Paid social media ads may help generate immediate action. Your organic posts will help lay the groundwork for returning audiences and ongoing brand awareness.
Within your budget for organic posting, consider the costs for developing social media posts and managing your strategy across multiple channels.
Creative Direction and Copywriting
Social media posting always includes creative and copy. Hiring the best designers and copywriters will help you lay the foundation for an engaging social media strategy.
According to Glassdoor, the average salary for graphic designers is $45,000 per year while copywriters make about $58,000 per year.
You can get by without professional graphics using a free service like Canva, but quality over quantity is always best on social media. Team members who can set your creative brand and tone will help you cut through the competition online.
Social Media Management
Social media management is the other long-term cost associated with social media marketing. Management includes content calendars, scheduling, reviewing analytics and setting the strategy per platform.
Some social media managers can also oversee creative and copywriting development. You can expect to pay a social media manager about $50,000 per year for his or her services.
Without social media management, you may not be able to stick with a strategy. Posting randomly can end up wasting money in the long run. A manager will keep you on track to make sure your social media aligns with overall business goals. An alternative to paying a hefty salary to a social media manager is hiring an agency who focuses on digital marketing. This option allows you to focus on what you do best while leaving the marketing to experts who live in the digital world.
How Much Does Social Media Advertising Cost?
Advertising on social media is another cost to factor in social media marketing. Social media pricing varies greatly from platform to platform, which is why it’s so important to have a strategy in place before you get started creating budgets.
Depending on your industry, certain platforms will work better than others in terms of awareness, lead generation and conversion. For example, B2B companies tend to have better results in advertising on LinkedIn versus Instagram or Twitter.
Facebook ads cost about $0.25 for every 1,000 people they reach. Yet, with Facebook, you can choose from several different campaign objectives that may affect your budget.
For example, if your objective is more traffic you’ll pay per click, while if your objective is lead generation you may pay for each form submission.
Overall, Facebook is about mid-level when it comes to the cost you’ll spend per day. Facebook is one of the best options for social media advertising because of its enhanced targeting options. No matter who your audience is, you can find them on Facebook.
Facebook owns Instagram, so it offers the same structure for setting up ads and targeting audiences. Instagram is much more visual than Facebook, so it’s better for B2C companies and entertainment-based posts.
Instagram also tends to skew younger than Facebook, which may factor into your social media strategy when you’re developing personas.
On Instagram, there are fewer types of ad formats you can choose from, but that means they’re usually less disruptive than Facebook ads. If you’ve targeted accurately, you can count on 10x more engagement than Facebook at a similar cost.
LinkedIn is one of the most expensive advertising platforms, but it offers the best targeting for B2B audiences. LinkedIn structures its campaigns similar to Facebook and Instagram, where you can choose a total, daily or per-bid budget. You can also choose objectives for clicks, impressions or messages.
With LinkedIn, you can expect to spend close to $6 per 1,000 impressions, which is about 24% greater than Facebook’s costs.
Twitter is a more limited advertising platform when compared to Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. You can still target users based on demographics and some user behavior, but Twitter doesn’t collect as much affinity data as others.
Using Twitter, you can expect to pay $0.50-$4 per engagement on promoted Tweets and promoted accounts.
Twitter also offers one of the most expensive forms of advertising through promoted trends, which is visible to the largest audiences and excellent for building brand awareness. Promoted trends can cost you about $200,000 per day.
YouTube
Google owns YouTube, so it offers enhanced targeting tied to user behavior online. YouTube offers one of the best platforms to build brand awareness since it has so many users from a variety of demographics.
YouTube is one of the more expensive advertising platforms. It’s significantly more expensive than a standard Search Network campaign through Google Ads.
Through YouTube, you can expect to pay $2,000 per 100,000 views or $20 per 1,000 views. The cost comparison is about 80% more expensive than Facebook.
Investing in a Social Media Strategy
Social media costs are meaningless if you haven’t already invested in a social media strategy. Without a strategy in place, you won’t have any framework to measure your success.
The most cost-effective way to develop a strategy and manage your social media platforms would be to hire a marketing agency. Agencies usually price their services as a retainer fee, which means you can count on a single price per month for everything from strategy, management, analytics reporting and more. The average industry fee for a monthly marketing retainer starts at $1,000 and usually doesn’t go beyond $3,000.
Developing a strategy means evaluating each platform to determine which ones make sense for your audience. You don’t have to be present on every single platform. Working with a marketing agency can help save you time and resources to focus on the platforms that help you generate the most leads and revenue.
Generating ROI From Social Media Marketing Costs
Some of the costs associated with social media marketing are steep, especially for small businesses. Yet, when social media is used correctly it can provide a successful revenue source for your business.
Contact VujaDay Creative Digital Agency today to get started building your social media strategy. Our social media marketing packages include audience targeting, social listening, advertising and more.
