A small business retailer told me last week they were paying a social media consultant $500 a month for Facebook and Instagram posts. The agreement called for two posts a week. The consultant overdelivered with there to each platform a week.
Six months in to the agreement and the retailer was concerned as they were not seeing any result in revenue.
While the likes for posts were good and likes for the business Facebook page had grown considerably, there was no tangible benefit, no new faces, no in-store mentions of the posts.
In my opinion, social media posts are best if they come from within the business, are simple, entertaining and serve to pitch the business against whats people would assume the business to offer.
Paying a consultant to write posts is dead money as no one can speak for your business sin such an immediate and interactive platform as you and those who work in the business with you.
It is easy to spot social media posts by an agency or social media consultant. It is overthought, often bland, smelling commercial and, usually, overwritten.
Social media consultants can make a strong pitch, helping you with something you may not understand, making it seem easy, coming across as the expert, winning you over with marketing charm.
When it comes to small business social media engagement, the experts are those in small businesses doing it successfully, doing it with a direct revenue benefit. While there may be some consultants achieving this, I am skeptical there would be many.
Sure it is an extra task to complete. The thing is, in today’s world, it is probably the single most important marketing task for the business.
I do Facebook posts regularly (generally 2-5 times a week) for the hobby part of my business and it takes no more than 2 to 3 minutes to take a picture and post. The revenue return for that 3 minutes is always generally measurable as someone comes in and says ” I saw you had..” or a I get a reply asking to purchase the item. It is usually the most profitable 3 minutes of my day !
Thanks for sharing that Paul. I hope it inspires others. I know of plenty of newsagents who think promoting business on facebook is a waste of time and not relevant to them.
I disagree with your comments that you have to do it yourself. It is perfectly acceptable to outsource the areas of your business that you have no expertise in – such as your accounting – and social media is no different from this. You just have to choose wisely, be clear on your outcomes and give them the sufficient guidance and information that they need about your business to make their posts relevant, engaging and appropriate. I know many people who do this very successfully for a number of businesses in many different industry sectors but the principles are the same across the board. If I was paying $500 for this service I’d have very specific outcomes that I’d be expecting to receive as a return on this investment.