Web Secret #268: Cost of Social Media

Social media for your business costs nothing, (except for your time,) provided you do it yourself. But many professionals would prefer to hire an expert to do it for them. And that brings up the question "How much will it cost me?"

Fees are among the most closely guarded secrets. Fortunately, social media strategist Mack Collier divulges this information in a yearly article aptly titled "How Much Does Social Media Cost Companies." Here is the essence of what he had to say in his most recent annual survey:

Blog
Custom design and template creation – $1,000 – $5,000
Writing/Editing Content for the blog plus ongoing training – $500-$4,000 a month (Assume 1-2 posts a week at this rate)
Ghostwriting blog posts – $50-$500 per

Twitter
Account Setup - $500-$2,000
Ongoing Account Management and Training – $500-$3,000 a month

Facebook
Initial Page Setup – $500-$2,500
Monthly Content Management and Curation – $500-$3,000 a month

Social Media Training and Consulting
Hourly Training/Consulting – $50-$500 an hour

Social Media Workshops(All fees exclude travel and are for on-site Workshops)
Half-Day (Up to 4 hours): $500-$7,500
Full-Day (6-8 hours): $1,000-$15,000
Note: Keep in mind that workshop rates represent a significant amount of training and content creation time. If you pay a consultant $5,000 for a day-long workshop, that consultant might have spent 20 or 30 hours creating that workshop. So the prep time has to be considered in addition to the actual time delivering the workshop when looking at fees.

In general, a really good compromise is to have the expert set up your blog/Twitter/Facebook and teach you or another one of your staff members how to run your social media channel going forward.