How Much to Charge for Social Media Management

With more businesses moving over to the online domain, there are plenty of companies needing help with their social media channels. Maintaining regular content, interactions with customers, and building a following on any social media platform is difficult. Whether you have an in-house team of digital marketers or not, it’s useful to outsource any help you need.

For those looking at offering social media management, there’s no official guidebook on how much you should charge for this service. Instead, you should be thinking about what you’re offering and how much you feel is an accurate value for that service.

In this guide, we’ll look at how much you should be charging for social media management. Whether you’re looking to adjust your current rates or you’re just starting out on this career path, it’s important to charge the right amount that you and/or your team deserves.

What Is Social Media Management?

Social media management is a role that requires analysis of the company’s social media audiences and developing a strategy that works for that individual client. From distributing fresh content regularly to interacting with customers and potential leads, it encompasses all aspects of a company’s social media presence – or lack of one.

Other duties under social media management include collaborating with influencers, providing community support, and monitoring communications from customers and the community in general. Social media management will often report back on social media performance and the ROI that the business has spent.

The Rise of Social Media in 2022

Social media has certainly grown exponentially over the years, with over 3.78 billion social media users existing worldwide. This is a number that’s only going to grow further as more individuals create themselves a digital presence.

There are, of course, many benefits to social media with the main being exposure for a business. Regardless of the industry or the size of the business itself, everyone has an equal opportunity to gain a following online.

For businesses, there’s a lot of potential that can be achieved with the right guidance and help when managing social media platforms. Consumers are doing more of their shopping online than ever before. With 43% of consumers increasing their social media use to discover new products, it pays for businesses to get their products or services out there.

How Much Should You Charge for Social Media Management?

Before answering this question, it’s important to consider what may influence the amount you charge. From the scope of work that the client is asking for, to the additional resources and internal costs that your business will need to front. Here are a few things to consider when totaling up the rates of social media freelancers or social media agencies:

Experience in social media management

For social media clients, they’ll be browsing social media management sites and individuals, looking for previous experience. Everyone has to start somewhere, so you may need to charge lower rates if you’ve not yet got any experience in managing social media platforms professionally.

However, any relevant experience in social media management, even if it’s your own personal platforms, is useful to include when pitching to clients. When it comes to your experience, it’s important to show examples of your content creation, what social media strategies you’ve used previously, and how that’s impacted your prior clients positively.

Just because a social media manager has years of experience, doesn’t mean they’re best suited for the role. Be sure to take stock of what abilities you have and have provided in the past before communicating these with a prospective client.

Upwork is a freelancer platform and is a useful starting point for understanding how much you should be charging. According to Upwork, social media managers charge between $14-$35 per hour.

Business types you work with

It’s important to consider what type of businesses you’ll be working with as a social media manager. The bigger the business, the more assistance you’ll likely need, and you may be required to hire a team to help, or perhaps you’ve already got a business with existing team members?

How big is the business?

The bigger businesses will likely have more marketing spend whilst smaller businesses may be limited in what they can offer. As a direct result, they may reflect the same prices in how much they are able to pay you. It might be that you need to adjust your prices according to the finances available within the business.

Before you begin to price a social media management project, it is important to learn everything you can about a prospective client. While this information shouldn’t be the only factor in determining pricing, it is helpful to know when writing winning proposals and closing new business.

The industry they’re in

It’s important to also consider the industry that the business is operating in, particularly when this can further influence the budget available for marketing. This is an area where it might be worthwhile doing some research in order to understand what rates are best.

The scope of work required

What does the client require when it comes to the scope of work? As a social media manager, there may be certain duties that you charge more for and others that you don’t offer as part of your services. You may be more well versed when it comes to certain platforms and therefore you offer a niche selection of services as a social media manager.

What work can influence the rates of pay you charge? Here are some common, key services that can help establish a scope of work that suits you and the client.

Paid vs organic social

Ideally, there should be a mix of paid and organic social content in all marketing strategies. One can’t effectively co-exist without the other and so it’s worthwhile to understand what types of content you’re providing. It may just be the paid socials whilst the brand focus on the organic social side themselves.

It may be that your client isn’t well-versed in either and needs assistance on both. It might be something that you can do both of or you may only be able to do one or the other. It’s worthwhile learning both in order to price up your services.

From product launch email marketing, which you can learn more about with Flodesk, to guest blogging for backlinks and improving the client’s website domain, a mix of both is crucial.

The number of platforms

There are so many social media platforms nowadays that it can be difficult for social media managers to keep up with them, let alone the businesses themselves.

How many social media platforms do the businesses have and how many do they need managing? From Facebook to YouTube, Twitter to Instagram, Snapchat, and Tiktok, you may want to consider the amount of work required for each platform and to price this all accordingly.

Some platforms might require more effort and time on your part, depending on the tasks required.

Content creation

There are many social media managers that will offer lots of different services when it comes to just the content creation element of the job. From blogging and graphic design to copywriting, depending on your skills, there are endless skills and knowledge you can deliver to the business and charge more for it as a result.

You may want to take a tailored approach where you research the company’s needs when it comes to content creation and make suggestions on what would be most productive to offer. The brand itself may have its own requests too. Be flexible!

Influencer marketing to get followers on Tiktok

Influencer marketing is huge at the moment, with the industry expected to reach a whopping $16.4B in 2022.

With this area of work, there can be quite a lot of research needed to find the right individuals that will be able to provide the right audience to the client in question and hopefully convert leads to customers. It’s still quite a new area of marketing and many can tend to get it wrong, so it’s worth becoming an expert in this field of social media management!

There are lots of ways to use influencer marketing. Whether the client is figuring out how to get followers on Tiktok to boost subscribers on YouTube, it’s a worthwhile form of marketing to use.

Customer communications

How much of your services will involve communicating with customers? You may wish to include this as part of your services or it may be outsourced to another company or individual, by the client.

What Internal Costs Will Be Incurred?

There are a number of internal costs that you may incur as a social media manager. From employee expenses to hiring any other individuals outside of your business, it all adds up quickly.

Consider the tools and software you may need to pay for, the hours worked yourself, and the value of your services in regards to the gains that the client is going to receive. Overheads like office spaces, photo studios, etc are all worth considering when setting a fee.

What Options Are Available for Charging Clients?

What options do you have when it comes to charging clients? Here are some of the approaches you can take when charging clients:

• Hourly rate
• Monthly fixed fees
• A retainer
• Per project basis

The way in which you charge will vary as a social media manager. You may use a mix of the above in order to deliver the best services and to get paid in a  timely manner.