In this article, we examined all the possible formats of social networking for small businesses and illustrated with the experience of entrepreneurs. At the end of the material, there are applied tips from Eva Katz and our project manager Vladislav Bezpalko, which will help you understand whether a specialist or agency is really useful and not waste your budget. And finally, a checklist that will help evaluate the results of social media management - yours, a hired freelancer, a full-time specialist or a third-party agency.
Social media should drive sales
Lead them "for show"- means taking away from your business time, finances and human resources that you could spend on improving your product, hiring the right specialists or launching a new direction. Not leading them at all means losing potential customers, partners and opportunities for development. Any business needs a competent SMM, and you can choose the traditional ways:
- Agency.
- Freelancer.
- Self-management + consultations.
- Self-management.
From our experience, most often a business goes through all the ways - first it tries to run social networks on its own. If he doesn't get the results he wants, he hires a freelancer, a jack of all trades, who independently maintains accounts, launches ads, communicates with potential clients and works with bloggers. If the work of a freelancer does not bring satisfactory results, he looks for other ways. Let's take a look at the pros and cons of each social media method for an entrepreneur, shop, or service industry.
Hiring a third-party SMM specialist: simple, cheap, but often leads to a drain on the budget
Why do we argue that freelancers are more likely to drain clients' budgets than agencies? Yes becauseinterviewed entrepreneurs who hired third-party SMM specialists and"Burned". And here's what we found out.
Flexibility, mobility, lack of formalities, availability and quick reaction to events - in the eyes of many entrepreneurs, agencies lack these qualities. Therefore, small businesses and microbusiness hires freelancers who write texts in one hand, launch ads, take pictures, analyze statistics and write promotion plans.
Trusbox.
“An agency will always be less flexible than an individual employee. Working with an agency is good for large established businesses, but we are young and mobile - we need more reaction and less formalization. "
But can a freelancer's services be of high quality if he has several projects in his work?A freelancer is cheaper than an agency, but does not have as much capacity and resources as a full-fledged project team. And time - a freelancer cannot completely immerse himself in every client business, develop individual concepts, non-stop testing and implement new tools. Therefore, the results are often very average, and the frustrated entrepreneur again runs social networks on his own and periodically takes consultations, or contacts the agency.
Now imagine what your company's social networks will look like if they are hosted by such a busy Marina. She will not have time to “play” with the targeting settings, to prescribe in detail the portraits of the target audience, compile a comparative table of competitors and test new features in social networks. Most likely, it will be streaming work that will not bring a large increase in sales and the desired influx of new customers.
Not all freelancers work like this - there are cool specialists on the market who manage to lead several clients, give advice, write courses on texts or promotion in social networks and keep abreast of all the latest chips and trends in their field. But these smrm-managers take at least 2-3 times more expensive and do not do everything by hand - instead, they establish cooperation with photographers, graphic designers and target experts. As a result, a scattered resemblance of an agency works for you - the results are already higher, but can it be argued that in this case, every involved specialist is immersed in the project?
Freelancer does not understand the product and works according to a universal scheme
A freelancer applies a standard approach to any company, and does not take into account the specifics of the niche and the needs of the audience, and does not delve into such subtleties as philosophy or the emotional message of the brand. And it's a very important story for social media.
In the hands of such a specialist is a set of universal, tested tools that he applies from project to project.
Evgenia Serikova, Gift to the Angel Charitable Foundation:
“Freelancers, especially if they are salaried, often act as regular content managers who do not engage the audience and do not use sales tools.
We have rather no experience of interaction with SMM specialists in outsourcing. I cannot say that the experience of working with freelancers was negative, since nothing critical happened, but at the same time we did not notice any positive changes. Freelancers often do not understand the product, they do not always write texts that emotionally reflect the activities of the company. Our foundation often collaborates with various companies, and the experience of interaction with their specialists in working with social networks confirms once again that a person must know the product 100%, otherwise the content looks very dry. "
It is difficult for a freelancer to understand the specifics of the product and develop a long-term strategy
A freelancer rarely takes time to understand the specifics of a product - he thinks in bare KPIs without reference to the benefits for the client and audience. As a result, in order to achieve the coveted number in subscribers, the specialist winds up the audience, sells head-on and does not think about how to keep people alive and win their loyalty. Agencies also have such a sin, but let's add right away from ourselves - we think differently. How - we will tell further, but for now let's get back to freelancers.
Sergey Abdulmanov, Mosigra company:
“We tried to give a freelancer the maintenance of the Danetki project's instagram. As a result, about 10 thousand people were caught up in the group with constantly updated danets - they did not get into the audience (many children came), into geography, they could not keep the audience and present the product.
It's hard to find someone in this market who knows what to do and how. The specialist must find the correct tone of voice in communications. We are very client-oriented, and the usual KPIs of an SMM manager are not designed for a long-term strategy. Also, our specialist should be well versed in board games, and this is quite a long training. "
Freelancer is not versed in complex technical topics
If a freelancer specializes in a specific topic, especially if he has a specialized education, he can easily figure out the nuances. But for all medical, IT projects and other complex areas, there are not so many experts in SMMs. Therefore, such a business needs a full-time specialist or agency to dive into the project.
Vladimir Samarin, Cloud4Y company:
“We have a technically complex business - a cloud provider, we use hardware and software technologies in our business. To understand and communicate our advantages, including technological ones, to our clients, we need knowledge and experience in the IT sphere. The community of IT professionals, with whom we also communicate on social networks, does not tolerate unprofessionalism when writing posts. "
Hiring a full-time specialist: knows the product and dives into the business, but does not have the agency's capacity
A business that sees no benefit from freelancers and does not want to go to an agency hires a full-time SMM. Such a specialist often also performs the functions of a marketer or PR specialist, works with only one project and is completely immersed in it.
The in-house specialist shares the brand values
If a specialist works with only one brand, most likely, he shares his philosophy and is ready to use the products or services that he is promoting himself. Ideally, a full-time SMM manager broadcasts the company's values \u200b\u200bin social networks not only because he is paid for it, but he is really “burning” with the project and wants to develop it.
Elena Lapko, NOOSA-Amsterdam:
“One full-time specialist is responsible for social media, PR and marketing of our brand. We work with unusual Dutch accessories, and it is important that the person who “speaks” on the Web on behalf of NOOSA-Amsterdam shares the brand values, knows what customer objections we usually work with, and wears our jewelry himself. Our PR specialist knows how accessories change in the process of wearing, how to take care of them, what to give to mom, friend or other half.
An outsourced SMM manager, in my opinion, would maintain accounts for universal scheme - the same for different areas of business. A personal approach is important to us.
We dilute posts about goods with publications from different parts of the world, where the culture of local residents is in tune with the philosophy of the brand, we shoot image videos and animations, hold a competition, talk about the meanings of the symbol buttons on products, show photographs from production in Nepal, Indonesia and Peru. We play up world events, touch on the "hype" Internet trends, but we remain within the framework of our concept and do not go too far. "
In-house SMM specialist is always in the center of the action
A freelancer who leads several projects at the same time cannot constantly travel to the scene to each client. So all live content is lost - live broadcasts, situational posts, stories and reports. What remains is the standard format - photos and texts - which looks bland if it is not diluted interactively. But even in the texts it is impossible to convey the mood and atmosphere of the brand without regular excursions to the “inner kitchen”.
Evgenia Serikova, charitable foundation"Gift for an angel" :
“Our full-time PR specialist initially worked remotely - interacted with bloggers and attracted additional traffic. Then we took him to the staff, because due to his very active activity he needs to be "in the center of events" - to conduct live broadcasts, reports, fill out stories and post content in the "here and now" mode.
BUT! One person does not have agency capacity
A full-time SMM manager has all the advantages that a freelancer does not have - he is immersed in the project and is always in the center of events. He has time to analyze competitors, build a large audience map, and test several ads for an ad campaign. But at the same time, a full-time SMM specialist alone performs the functions of a manager, copywriter, targetologist, community moderator ... And often also a photographer, designer, PR specialist, marketer and salesman. Therefore, sometimes companies employ an entire department.
Sergey Abdulmanov,mosigra company :
"We have a whole SMM department - they collect data on the company, form news feeds, include all new items and events in the content plan, and communicate with bloggers."
Vladimir Samarin,cloud4Y company:
“Our company has a marketing department. One of the specialists of this department prepares publications on Vkontakte, Facebook and Twitter every day. "
But the SMM department of 3-4 people means additional expenses of 150-250 thousand rubles every month. Let's compare: agencies charge an average of 95 thousand rubles - although the final price may change up or down depending on the project. Therefore, if the costs for the SMM department are too high and will grow in the future, it is worth considering transferring social networks to the agency.
Transfer of social media to the agency
The agency has more capacity and high responsibility for the result. All team members have already been selected, ground to each other and are replaceable. If the work suffers because of the mistakes of the targetologist or manager, you can always make a castling - replace one specialist with another who is more suitable for a specific project. If an employee is sick or went on vacation, another person temporarily takes over, and the mechanism continues to work. There is no chaos, silence and disruption of deadlines - and this is exactly what happens if the responsibility for the result lies with one person and he suddenly disappears, gets sick or leaves the client. And now we are talking about an agency with a good reputation in the market, great experience and employees who work for the result.
Frequent and unprofessional freelancers are often scolded on social media, but in reality, entrepreneurs are wary of agencies. The main fears are that the agency requires a lot of documents and regulations, does not immerse itself in business, the price of an error is higher, the agency is less flexible than an individual specialist, at the stage of the presale the project is carried out by some specialists, and after the sale by others.
Anna Gorodetskaya, handmade lingerie companyTrusbox:
“The agency will always be less flexible than an individual employee - we are young and mobile, we need more reaction and less formalization. We tried to work with promotion agencies and were unhappy - their prices are higher than those of freelancers (which is natural), but the speed and quality are lower (but this is strange).
I am afraid that the agency will begin to demand from us a bunch of regulations and documents (which is normal on the one hand, but will take too much time on our part). Plus, one person will communicate with us on the sale and installation of the project, and another will work. For us, this will be a double waste of time - first we brief the agency for the sale and formation of the project, and then - the final executor. The agency will not delve into the essence of our business, which means that it will not be able to transfer information about it to buyers. Agency managers will disappear just like freelancers, but agency costs are much higher. "
Now let's deal with every possible fear of a distrustful client. We do not sign for all agencies - only for ourselves. We will tell you how we do it and why we came to such a decision. Without water and abstract theory - only our experience and approach.
The agency will always be less flexible than an individual employee
Yes and no. Yes, communicating with one specialist is easier than communicating with a whole project team, plus a single employee makes a decision and makes changes alone, which means faster.
On the other hand, every project team has a manager. This is exactly the case in our agency - the project is responsible for communicating with the client, approving all plans, concepts and texts and transmitting reports. If the client has a question or something went wrong, he can always contact the manager. We will solve everything within the team, but the project has one representative who will present the solution. This simplifies communication, removes long chains of approvals and makes us more flexible.
The agency has different people at the stage of pre-sale and work on the project
Here we again went against the system - we involve specialists in the project already at the pre-sale stage. The project manager in conjunction with the content manager prepares a commercial proposal, an example of an editorial plan and posts, prescribes the first audiences, thinks over a plan for the development of social networks and advertising formats. We do not wait for the brief, but we ourselves are looking for information, monitoring competitors and thinking over an approximate concept.
By the time of the sale, our employees already know everything about the business and the client - they do not spend the first weeks of work collecting information and immediately launch the project.
Maria Rusinova, project manager at 5 o'click agency:
“Together with the content manager, we prepared two commercial proposals. Already at the pre-sale stage, we immersed ourselves in the project - we went to the site, collected information about the business and the client, studied the target audience, thought over the editorial plan and wrote the first posts. Therefore, by the time we start working, we will already have the necessary information, and we will start right away. "
Agency managers disappear just like freelancers
People disappear - if an employee suddenly disappears from the radar, there is nothing we can do about it. But we will be able to replace the missing specialist with another on the same day without delay and damage to the project. If one of our targeting specialists is suddenly ill, your advertising campaigns will be set up by another - you will not lose potential customers or part of your advertising budget.
But such a case is from the category of fantasy. Our employees do not disappear - we can afford to "sift" them through test tasks and 2-3 months of probationary period. Does not cope - we are promptly looking for a replacement.
No freelancer will agree to a 2-3 month probationary period and be fired at any time. But it is not profitable for business - after 3 months, the first results are usually visible and the specialist fully "gets used to" the project. If an SMM specialist is already screwing up in the first month, you cannot part with him until you find a replacement. Firing right away means subscribing to a simple project and losing money without any guarantee that the next employee will show himself better.
Ekaterina Molchanova, PR managerin the publishing holding T8 :
“My work with a freelance smm-manager ended up firing him and starting to run the client's social networks on my own. When you work with the social networks of a book, it is implied that you have to read it, get imbued with the atmosphere, the characters of the characters, the plot. But the girl decided that she could do it anyway - in the end I had to take it upon myself. "
The agency does not immerse itself in the client's business
So we come to the most painful - the superficial approach in agencies. Large agencies have many projects, one employee is involved in at least 4 - he physically does not have time to dive into each business. Especially if it is a manager who constantly communicates with the client, coordinates the work of the team and controls every stage of work. Often, agency specialists use the same standard approaches to content, catch up with bots in communities, get likes, do not test audiences and visits to advertising campaigns, and in fact work on numbers and numbers, and not on results.
5o'click specialists delve into the client business, test approaches and come up with a unique strategy for each project. A case in point is ... In short, we have increased the number of leads by 2.5 times. To process them, the client had to expand the sales department - precisely thanks to the revision of the strategy and the constant testing of advertising tools.
Self-management + consultations: full control of the result, but constant workload
Another option that is suitable for micro-businesses, where everything is tied to the owner's personal brand, is the independent maintenance of social networks. So the entrepreneur completely controls the result, but, on the other hand, instead of investing time and effort in the business, he spends resources on training and additional work that he could delegate.
Option one: learn everything yourself
The first and most difficult way is to master the skill of an SMM manager on your own. But then you will have to learn how to write texts in different formats, set up targeted advertising, analyze audiences and constantly monitor trends, new features and social media updates. And then - to write plans, adjust universal mechanics to your niche and constantly test tools.
This is a full-fledged job that takes time and energy. And at the first stage, you do not have enough knowledge and experience to adequately assess your own results.
Option two: go to a professional consultation
The second way is to take advice from a professional media manager or advertiser who will analyze your audience, think over a strategy, write a step-by-step development plan specifically for your business, help you choose a presentation style, and give advice on the visual design of social networks and texts. All you have to do is follow the instructions, periodically check the plan, and also improve your copywriting and targeting skills.
The co-owner of our agency, Eva Katz, has such a format, and it works successfully - Eva's wards find new clients, increase sales and maintain social networks no worse than professional SMMs.
Therefore, if you do not want to contact freelancers, agencies or hire a full-time specialist, we recommend that you take a closer look at the consultations - so your social networks will definitely work for you.
We examined the pros and cons of the four main methods of promotion in social networks + an additional format - consultations. Now we offer our solution. We are against dirty games in the name of blindly fulfilling KPIs - it is important for us to keep social networks cool, broadcast the atmosphere and brand values \u200b\u200band increase sales in white ways. Therefore, now we are testing a new approach with even greater immersion in the client business - one day a week our specialist lives with the brand, lives its life and delves into the work processes.
Our approach: full immersion in the project and the introduction of a specialist at the scene
Now we have expanded the immersion format. Now our employee goes to the scene every two weeks, gathers information, eavesdrops on people's conversations and absorbs the atmosphere. So far, we are acting this way only on one client project - the Persona School of Stylists - and it is too early to talk about demonstrative results. But the first achievements are pleasing, the team"Caught the wave" and from the very first post I hit the mark with the style, intonation and message of social networks.
International brands allocate millions of dollars to work with an online audience, while small companies and private entrepreneurs can often afford to spend only a few hundred dollars (or even rubles) a month on SMM. However, the principles for the most efficient budget allocation are the same regardless of the amount invested.
First, determine what percentage of your income you are willing to invest in SMM. Duke School of Business specialists analyzed the items of expenses of the most dynamically developing companies and saw that the share of SMM in their marketing budget is growing from year to year.
Formation of budgets depends on the segment, target audience and financial capabilities, so each has a unique budget, taking into account individual characteristics. However, there are a few basic principles to keep in mind when planning your social media work.
If the entire budget is taken as 100%, then 60% should be directed to creating content and maintaining pages in social networks (this includes preparing a content plan, copywriting, design, posting and working with comments). Send 30% of budget funds to promotion and promotion (advertising in social networks, contests, promo posts of opinion leaders, etc.). Another 5% - for research and analytics, as well as for training and development.
According to many years of research, a successful picture on social networks is the lion's share of a successful post. In addition to the well-known Photoshop, there are many online image editors with beautiful templates that will help you make bright and memorable pictures for your posts. For example, or.
Try, experiment, choose what suits you best.
Do not forget about the video, the future belongs to it. According to the Social Media Marketing Industry Report 2016, 73% of professionals intend to post videos more often in 2018, and every second will use live broadcasts.
If you think advertising is not for you, you are wrong. MarketingSherpa notes that Internet users aged 18-34 are more likely to subscribe to a brand on social media (95%), although they do not accept other types of advertising.
Even those brands that have been in the top for many years advertise themselves. In order to determine which social network is most effective for your product, it is worth spending $ 10–20 investing in the most popular social networks: Facebook, VKontakte, Instagram, Twitter, and then comparing the indicators.
This is what happened with the IT research company WordStream. Your results may be different.
Social media is a great resource for feedback. The needs and desires of the target audience can be seen from the comments, reactions to a particular post. In order to move unmistakably in the right direction, you need to closely monitor the mood within social media and respond to them correctly.
The educational plan involves adding (paid and / or free) to different groupscommunities that share a common theme with you. This will help you grow professionally, increase audience coverage, and subsequently reduce spending on certain services in SMM promotion of your own product.
The main rule: all costs must be justified. A well-balanced and well-prepared media plan will be the key to a successful SMM strategy.
We launched our project two years ago. This is a single subscription that provides access to one-time workouts and visits to various fitness rooms and studios. Initially, we did not set a large budget for marketing, we immediately tuned in to the maximum use of various useful services, of which there are now a lot.
Services for
It is a tool with which you can easily find out what is being written about your company, competitors or any topic in blogs, social networks or news. The search brings up results for keywords or topics.
You answer their requests, and the more interesting your answer is, the more likely it will be chosen and published. There is a convenient subscription to inquiries, we track fitness, startups, healthy lifestyles, and so on.
Analytics services
Survey builder, very easy to use. Easily integrates into your website or blog.
You can choose from different blocks and ready-made designs. It is easy to collect customer opinions with such a survey.
Helps with site and platform analytics. The service is very useful if you want to work with media. You can view traffic and its sources, track seasonality and the impact of other indicators. It is easy to predict how useful publications on different resources will be.
You can check absolutely any site, but the service will not display very low traffic. The downside is not always reliable data.
Specific queries are also easy to check. For example, enter "yoga butovo" and the service will give you who is already advancing on this request.
Another service that analyzes competitors' search ads.
Services for the design of the visual component of the brand
As for the design, we were looking for resources where you can find something original and “not soiled”.
The service was a wonderful discovery. For $ 10 a month - a huge selection of photos, templates, flyers, icons, and more. We use this resource all the time (and are very happy with it).
If you don't have a designer, ordering work from one freelancer is not the best a good idea... Our experience has shown that such cooperation often leads to some failures.
This is a designers' exchange, where you leave your request, complete TK, expose the cost of work. Then the designers compete and offer you different options. So instead of three options from one designer, you can get about 100 from different people.
Few people use it, although this is a tool where Google itself tells why your page loads poorly, indexes poorly and what needs to be changed to make it more satisfied with your site from a search point of view.
This service sometimes helps out well, but you need to use it with caution. Read reviews and check artist ratings.
The basics of the basics
Here I want to mention the tools that seem to be known to everyone, to the readers of Rusbase, for sure. But when I spoke at an industry event in November, it turned out that most of them did not know each other at all. Therefore, it will not be superfluous to remind about them.
