SOCIAL MEDIA AND SMALL BUSINESS: HOW MUCH SHOULD YOU PAY?

2010 is shaping up to be the year that many small businesses will be dipping their toes into social media world. For many small companies, having the internal marketing resources to manage social media campaigns is just not feasible.

As such, many companies will be looking to outsource these efforts to social media firms and/or consultants. This is certainly a sound strategy. But, the big question that looms for many is: how much should I be paying for social media? As a financial services executive who works with both small businesses and PR/marketing firms, I wanted to share some pricing insights.

BLOG DEVELOPMENT AND MANAGEMENT
Many small companies are opting for the self-publishing method of bypassing the media filter and communicating directly with customers and prospects through a blog. You should be able to find a marketing partner who can handle all elements of the blog including content creation, podcasting and social media dissemination through Twitter and other social media channels. This is a very valuable service and the range for a small company should be somewhere between $5,000 and $10,000 per month (depending on the required blog activity per month).

CREATIVE CAMPAIGNS AND VIDEO CONTENT
Developing creative campaigns that are tied into more high-value content like video can be costly. However, not every online video has to appear as if Francis Ford Coppola produced it. And in the new Flip video era we are living in, there are other ways to keep the video production costs down. That said, for more professional/creative videos, a small company would want to pay about $10,000 per campaign. And, for the more DIY-videos, the scale should be somewhere between $3,000 to $5,000 per video.

TWITTER, FACEBOOK AND LINKED-IN CAMPAIGNS
In 2010, many small businesses will need someone to manage all other social media elements – besides the actual blog. This means, developing and running their official Twitter feeds, Facebook Fan Pages and Linked-In Groups. In addition, an outsourced marketing partner can promote content on a myriad of Linked-In groups that are industry related. As such, a comprehensive campaign that contains all of these elements could easily touch thousands of prospects on a daily basis. This is a very valuable service and the range for a small company should be somewhere between $5,000 to $7,000 per month.

Social media is still the “Wild West” in terms of determining what you should be paying. And larger companies have the financial resources to pay for larger social media campaigns. The budgets I have highlighted in this post are based on what I have seen in the industry and are geared towards smaller businesses looking to enhance their marketing through social media. I hope you have found this helpful. I welcome all thoughts, comments and feedback.