What Is Worth the Money When It Comes to Social Media?

For individuals, social media is great because it doesn’t cost anything. You can talk with your friends and spread your opinion without having to pay a dime. Unfortunately, businesses aren’t so lucky. Putting time and effort into a social media campaign can actually cost quite a bit of money when all is said and done.

Although signing up for the sites initially is free, there are many costs that catch businesses off guard. The worst part: Many businesses keep trying to work against the need to spend any money on social media. After all, social media is supposed to be free, right?

The truth is—just because something is free at first doesn’t mean it is going to stay free forever. In fact, it can sometimes be a good thing when your company becomes so successful that you have to start spending a little bit of money to keep it under control. This is an indication that your company is growing, and social media is no different. However, it can be tough to know what is worth the money, and in such a struggling economy every penny matters.

Below are some of the costs involved with social media that you may want to consider as well as some that are better left ignored:

Top 3 Social Media Costs: Are They All Worth the Money?

1. Scheduling tools such as Buffer charge for companies hoping to add multiple accounts.

No. This is probably not worth the money because there are scheduling tools, such as Timely.is, available that allow you to manage multiple accounts for free. If you are an individual, a scheduling tool like Buffer makes perfect sense because it doesn’t cost anything. However, a company’s finances are better spent on things aside from scheduling tweets and Facebook posts through a paid service. Although Buffer and Timely.is do differ in the way they schedule your messages, it is still probably best to wait until you are extremely financially secure to consider spending money on social media scheduling.

2. Hiring a social media consultant or agency to help you run your campaigns.

Yes. Unless you really know what you are doing and you have a large amount of time to work with social media, it is a good idea to hire someone with some experience. Knowing how to manage social media on a company level is different than knowing how it works on a personal level, and many business owners learn this the hard way. If you do not keep up with social media and do not have a presence on all of the major networks, this can actually hurt your company, making an expert really worth the money. Although I do not necessarily agree with hiring one person full-time to manage your social media efforts, it is a good idea to put someone such as an SEO director or content writer in charge of these efforts, or just hire someone part time.

3. Advertising on social media sites.

Yes. The major social media networks have users counting into the billions, so advertising on these sites is a great idea for any company. Social networks are also unique because you can make sure that your ad is being seen by someone within your target audience. Social networking already segments users into age groups, genders, and even religious backgrounds, so you will know exactly where to advertise. Visit Top Rank to learn more about how you can get involved with advertising on a social network.

The most important thing to remember is that social media is extremely important. If you are going to spend money on marketing campaigns, social media is something that should be put at the top of the priority list. Typically, your social media campaign will still be less expensive than your other marketing campaigns, so it’s not something to stress over.

Have you ever spent money on an aspect of social media? What was your experience?