Social Media: Should I Pay For It?

The question, “Why Should I Pay For Social Media Help?” is one that I know is going through most people’s minds when I talk them about my services. While this question is definitely one I can’t say I don’t have an unbiased opinion towards, I’ll start by saying that this post isn’t meant to convince you why you should work with me or even other consultants. The main reason I am writing this post today is because I’m still seeing so many small or medium size businesses and organizations struggle with their online presence when they don’t need to.

It’s probably because social media has such a pop culture association that businesses still feel like they can have an intern, that younger person on their staff or just no one at all fully responsible for their online presence. Why pay someone who just plays on Facebook all day? Yes, social media is something used widely for personal interactions, but so isn’t a telephone and no business would question the use of a phone in the day-to-day operation of their work. So please, read through some of the reasons why you should consider paying someone to help you with your social media.

Your Business Needs Social Media

The online world and social media aren’t going away. In fact, they’re growing every single second, minute and hour of the day. Not having an online presence of some form whether it’s a website, social accounts or even just an email on your Yellow Pages listing can have major impacts on your bottom line. Your business needs to have someone who has experience with building all of that to help you.

Your Younger Staff Needs To Not Automatically Be In Charge of Social Media

Yup, we all we do it. We assume the youngest person in the room knows more about technology than us so we put them in charge of it. Sometimes we luck out and it’s their passion and area of expertise. Other times that younger individual feels forced into being the social media person, just because they’re the younger employee. If marketing or social media isn’t their thing, your younger staff desperately needs you to stop adding it as a responsibility just because of their age. Plus, think of it this way you wouldn’t make someone your accountant just because they have a calculator, so why are you making someone your social media specialist just because they can log on to Facebook? Business and personal use of social media is very different. You and your younger staff need to accept that difference.

You Need Less Stress Around Your Social Media

If you are small to medium size business and you don’t currently have the in-house resources or time to train someone, you’re probably stressing yourself out more than you need to about what’s happening on your social accounts. In fact, you may want to use social media, but you end up getting so frustrated that you tell yourself it’s just not worth it. Freeing up those couple of hours a week you spend wondering why that link just won’t show a picture when paste into that little box, but everyone can make a picture show so you get frustrated and give up, yeah those hours, your schedule could definitely use those back. It is worth it when you have the right support system in place.

So there it is, quick reasons why it makes sense to pay someone to manage your social media. It doesn’t matter if it’s me, another consultant or hiring someone with experience in the field. Just like anything else you would do for your business, you need to make sure that you are getting the best, most qualified individual for the job. Don’t think of it as paying someone to play on Facebook all day, because it’s not. It’s paying someone to make sure you’re well represented in the fastest growing marketplace there is.