With the cost of social media training, support and management ranging from hundreds of dollars an hour to as much as $5,000 a month, businesses not fully on board with the social wave are skeptical of whether the investment is worth the return.
As social media evolves and becomes more fully integrated with the broader marketing strategies of the businesses that are active in the social sphere, however, expert assistance is becoming increasingly vital, panelists said at a May 31 roundtable, “Social Media: Love or Hate It.”
“With all the people in social media, you really need to be able to stand out and distance yourself from the crowd,” said Bruce Newman, vice president of The Productivity Institute L.L.C. in Carmel, who moderated the discussion. “If social media is going to be a major component of your overall marketing strategy, you really should have an outside person doing it,” or at least acting as a guide, Newman said.
The panel was hosted by the Business Journal and was held at Valbella restaurant in Riverside, Conn.
Featured were: Chris Dessi, CEO of Silverback Social L.L.C. in Chappaqua; Jonathan Kinzler, principal of American Interactive Marketing L.L.C. in Stamford; David Menken, partner of McCarthy Fingar L.L.C. in White Plains; Kris Ruby, founder and CEO of Ruby Media Group in Mount Kisco and Jack Serpa, executive vice president for Engage 121 Inc., whose U.S. headquarters is in Norwalk.
Where in the past, companies experimented with the likes of Twitter and Facebook as they surged in popularity, companies are now seeking a more integrated social media strategy, Ruby said.
“Before 2012, people really just wanted social media … but now they see social media really as an extension of public relations,” she said.
The most common mistake cited by the panelists is for a company to jump into social media without having a strategy.
“Whether you want to use Pinterest or Twitter or LinkedIn, you have to stop and ask yourself two simple questions: What are the business goals that I”™m trying to achieve and do I get those business goals realized using any of these social platforms?” Serpa said. “If you break it down to those two simple questions, it”™s a good, core way of determining if it”™s worth spending $2,000 a month for someone else to do it (or) if it”™s worth spending two hours a day for me to do myself.”
Options for companies seeking outside assistance range from consultations and training to ongoing monitoring and content creation to full-service public relations and social media integration.
Services offered by the panelists”™ respective firms include the creation of a social media strategy, the creation of actual content ”“ from Tweets to videos to email marketing campaigns to traditional press releases ”“ and the ongoing monitoring of a company”™s social media platforms and interactions with consumers, among other offerings.
The one-time services ”“ such as training or the installation of several social media platforms ”“ often start in the hundreds of dollars and range as high as several thousand dollars, depending on a company”™s size and goals.
For ongoing support and monitoring, social media specialists typically charge a monthly retainer that ranges from a couple thousand dollars to $5,000 on a case-by-case basis.
Gauging the results of a social media presence can be difficult, however, despite free analytic services offered by Google Inc.
Through Google and other fee-based software, a company can get a sense of how consumers are arriving at their website, how long those consumers are staying on the site and what they”™re buying.
“But it”™s not going to be a definitive return on investment,” Dessi said. “I understand people want a direct one-to-one correlation. Right now, with the current tools we have and without breaking the bank on some very powerful tracking software, it”™s very difficult to get that.”
One way to measure return on investment (ROI) is for a company to specify exactly what its goals are prior to launching a social media campaign, Kinzler said.
“Key performance indicators can be anything from mentions in publications, blogs, retweets, etc., to the number of fans created for a Facebook page,” Kinzler said. “The important question to ask yourself is: What are the key performance indicators that drive a meaningful return on investment for your business?”
When weighing the cost of social media assistance, Newman said it”™s important to also account for the time a company or individual might spend on their own.
“You start thinking about the cost of social media, you also have to consider how much time you”™re spending on this,” he said. “If I”™m a business and I”™m putting 16, 20 hours a month into social media, that”™s a lot of time and that”™s a high cost off the bat.”
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