What Do Most Social Media Management Packages Include?

In 2023, most business models need a variety of social media management services, including social media strategy, social media content creation, including graphic creation, content creation, and hashtag research, publishing social media content, engagement and community management, and social media advertising.

Social Media Package Pricing

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How to Price Your Social Media Services in 2023

When businesses need help growing via professional social media marketing services, they have two options to choose from: a reputable digital marketing agency or a social media marketing strategist.

Whether you’re just starting out on your social media management journey or if you’re a seasoned marketing pro who’s trying to stay on track with the most current social media package prices, the experts at KIOPI are here to help!

In this post, we’ll explain how much social media management packages should cost, as well as how KIOPI can help you achieve your goals as a dedicated social media manager!

Social Media Management Value

It’s important to remember when pricing your social media marketing services that you’re not just selling your clients the number of hours that you’ve worked to create various elements of their social media campaigns.

If executed correctly, you’re providing an invaluable service that helps build brand recognition, increases engagement with potential customers, establishes trust, improves website conversions and ultimately helps them make more money!

Sure, you should know how many hours accomplishing your clients’ social media goals will take, but the amount of time it takes to establish a brand on social media can vary greatly.

Not all social media marketing packages are equal. If your price points are higher, you should be able to justify and articulate your unique selling proposition.

It’s important to stay competitive, but trust us when we say that price is not the only factor that companies consider when looking for a social media manager.

Invest your time into proving the value of your social media marketing services, and you’ll secure more businesses at the right price!

How Much Should You Charge for Social Media Marketing?

We’re sure that you’ve noticed the recent uptick in social media marketing. With an effective social media marketing strategy, businesses can connect with both current and potential customers, increase brand awareness, and drive more qualified traffic to stores or websites.

Many people start the conversation with marketing consultants by asking the question, “How much does social media marketing cost?” And the answer depends on several key factors.

These factors include but aren’t limited to:

the experience of the social media marketer
target market
client’s industry
cost of acquisition
social media services (number of social media profiles, number of social posts, client’s ad spend)

Social Media Management Experience

Your social media management pricing will vary greatly depending on the amount of experience you have providing social media marketing services.

According to UpWork, social media managers charge anywhere from $15/hr to $250/hr, depending on their level of experience running social media marketing campaigns and their ability to produce desired results.

ZipRecruiter estimates that for a freelance social media manager, the national salary average is $52,613. While Glassdoor estimates around $48,477 annually.

Entry level social media marketing: $15-$50 per hour
Intermediate-level social media marketing: $50-$100 per hour
Advanced level social media marketing: $120-$250 per hour

And, just like the averages vary for freelance social media managers, the social media management pricing also varies if you’re working with a digital marketing or social media marketing company, as well.

Target Market

It’s important that you remember both your target audience and the target market of your potential customers when you’re creating your social media management packages.

You don’t want to price your social media marketing services too high. While some marketing professionals say that there isn’t any risk associated with testing the market, we tend to disagree. You don’t want to accept a client’s pay unless you’re able to deliver what’s expected of you.

You also don’t want to price your services too low, either. Many companies will not hire you as a dedicated account manager if you’re undervaluing your work, either. More often than not, they associate a low social media management cost with inexperience. So, they won’t even inquire about your social media management packages or pricing.

In terms of social media marketing cost, there is a pretty wide area between “too high” and “too low” that will allow you to cast a wide enough net to get business but also will leave enough room for you to make a decent profit.

When you’re determining your target audience and social media management packages, you’ll want to keep a few factors in mind, such as the sizes of the companies you’re targeting. You’ll want to consider whether you’re wanting to provide social media marketing services to smaller businesses or if you’re only willing to work with large corporations.

Client's Industry

If you’re planning to target a specific industry for your social media management packages, you’ll find greater success if you niche down. This is regardless of whether you’re a freelance social media manager or working with a social media management company.

When selecting your target industry, it’s important that you understand the specific social media management needs of your potential customers, as well as their willingness and ability to pay for those services.

You also want to select an industry that you understand or are willing to learn about extensively, as this will help your social media management services stand out.

Cost of Acquisition

When pricing your social media management packages, it’s helpful if you know the cost of customer acquisition. This is how much time and money you’re spending to attract new clients.

To calculate your cost of acquisition, follow this equation:

Total cost to acquire new customers/number of new clients = average cost of new client acquisition

Social Media Services Offered

The social media services you’ll be providing is another key factor when determining your social media pricing plans.

If you’re offering full-service social media management packages, then you’ll need to price your social media services differently than if you are only offering social media content creation services.

Social Media Content Strategy

Before you take on any new client, it’s important that you establish the expectations of the client relationship. You want to make sure that all parties agree on a social media marketing strategy.

This important step provides clarity for the client’s target customer, voice of the brand, what types of social media content need to be produced, how often you’ll produce this content, and the goals for your social media management services within their overall marketing budget.

How to Structure Social Media Management Pricing: Social Media Agency vs Freelance Social Media Manager

Businesses spend more money, on average, completely outsourcing social media marketing services when compared to social media content creation services. This is because most of the time, if a business owner wants to outsource a task, they want the task, in its entirety, to be handled and off of their plate, so to speak.

In 2023, most business models need a variety of social media management services, including:

social media strategy
social media content creation, including graphic creation content creation and hashtag research
publishing social media content
community management
social media advertising

If you’re working within an internet marketing company, it’s possible that you’ll be in a better position to provide full-service social media management packages. This is because you can leverage your team’s unique abilities to provide different aspects of the social media management package.

If you’re a freelance social media manager, you’ll need to determine which social media services that you can provide yourself and which of those social media services need to be outsourced.

While outsourcing digital marketing services can be difficult, the great part about offering social media management packages to your clients is that you’ll cultivate a steady stream of income and repeat business to offset the initial social media management costs that you’ll personally accrue.

We provide more helpful information here: social media manager contract

Typical Social Media Management Packages

While perfect social media marketing packages will vary depending on the industry and business model, our social media marketing experts at KIOPI can provide you with some professional suggestions based on our personal experience managing social media accounts.

Basic Social Media Marketing Package

The more basic social media marketing packages should include the following:

social media strategy
social media content creation, including graphic creation, content creation, and hashtag research
publishing social media content

If a business wants to create a social presence on social media, a basic-level social media package will suffice. While this package won’t necessarily help the business get a direct return on investment, it will help the company build brand awareness and instill confidence in the brand by actively maintaining a social media presence.

Full-Service Social Media Marketing Package With Social Media Advertising

As we said earlier, in general, businesses will typically prefer full-service social media management packages.

These social media packages should include the following:

social media strategy
social media content creation
scheduling and publishing social media content
community management
social media advertising

So, the entry-level full-service social media marketing packages include all of the same services as the basic social media packages, but you’ll add community management and social media advertising services, as well.

If you work for a social media marketing agency with teammates who can assist with social media engagement and an advertising professional who can help with the client’s paid social media marketing, then a full-service package like this should be easy to handle.

However, if you’re a freelance social media manager, this package may be a little more difficult. We find that it’s best if you focus on either the organic content creation or the paid advertising portion. Then, outsource the other. This ensures that you won’t underdeliver on your promises, especially when you’re just starting out.

Many social media agencies focus on paid social media campaign management since this service doesn’t require as much communication with the client. This service provides a great profit margin and can have a direct impact on small businesses. You can price the paid social media advertising based on results or take a percentage of your customer’s ad spend.

How to Price Your Social Media Packages

Once you’ve decided what your social media management packages will include, you’ll need to set prices for them.

Our social media marketing experts at KIOPI recommend creating a pricing sheet for this step.

You’ll want to have an updated list of all your social media services. This should also include all of the social media marketing services that you’ll want to provide in the future.

Once you’ve got your list of social media marketing services, consider the services that your potential clients are seeking the most often.

Social Media Management Tasks

Some freelance social media managers specialize in niche content creation, where others focus more heavily on running social media ads or working with social media influencers.

A few of the specific components we recommend including on the sheet to help you determine your social media management cost include:

Number of Social Media Platforms

Determine the number of social media platforms that you’ll be servicing per client. We recommend offering social media marketing services for the most popular social media channels: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Google My Business.

If you’re managing only one social media channel with 5-7 posts per week, you’ll need to dedicate around 1 hour per day to accomplish everything you need to do!

Additionally, if you’re marketing on a new social media platform, you may be able to charge more for your marketing services since other social media advertisers don’t focus on these platforms. And if you are tasked with being the company’s Google My Business manager, this will require additional time, as well!

Quantity of Social Media Content

Next, determine how often each client wants social media content published. Will they expect you to publish content multiple times a day or once a week? The difference matters.

For smaller businesses, 2-3 posts a week should suffice, but for larger companies, we recommend posting 5-7 times a week.

Creatives

Many small businesses will only have a limited number of brand assets, while larger companies may have an in-house graphic artist that distributes materials on a scheduled basis.

For smaller businesses, we recommend using a mix of their brand assets with high-quality stock images that you use with permission or through a paid account. (If you have a paid stock image account, don’t forget to add this to your overall cost!)

Learn more about social media kits.

Reputation Management and Engagement

How much does your client expect you to interact with followers on their Facebook page, Twitter account, or other social media channels?

Typically, it’s best when the client does their own outbound engagement. But, if you’d like to help your clients out with reputation management, you can offer to monitor their inboxes and social media pages and then relay any important questions or complaints.

This can be difficult, though, if you’re running social campaigns for multiple clients.

Social Media Pricing Per Task

Now that you’ve figured out the scope of work for each of your social media campaigns, it will be easier to determine how much time should be allocated to each social media deliverable and the cost associated with that specific deliverable.

You should account for your time spent on each social media marketing deliverable, the price of the tools used to accomplish that deliverable, and a percentage of customer acquisition cost for each deliverable.

Each of your clients will have their own business goals and timelines to meet. This pricing model offers your clients more flexibility.

Social Media Pricing for Social Media Packages

The best way to upsell social media marketing services is to bundle them into social media marketing packages. This is the standard way to sell services in the marketing industry.

More social media marketing services = more profit for you.

On the other hand, you don’t want to offer a ton of social media marketing services just to offer them. Focus on the social media services that you know you can perform well.

Take your list of social media services and look at the section that has the more popular or requested social media services. Use this list to build out your core social media management packages.

If you want to incorporate social media ads into your social media marketing packages, you’ll want to cap your client’s ad spend based on each package.

Or alternatively, you could structure your social media management packages with an add-on capacity. This means that your clients can select one of your base packages and add on their preferred services, multiplying their cost times the number of social media networks they want you to manage.

If you’re just starting out, you may want to look at other social media marketers to determine the best way to package your social media services.

Social Media Pricing for Value

Another way to tackle social media marketing pricing is to use the value-based pricing strategy.

First, you’ll want to ask yourself, “How much value is my social media marketing campaign bringing my client?”

For this pricing strategy, you’ll need to know the value associated with new customer acquisition for each of your clients–how much revenue does your client expect to generate from your social media marketing services?

Once you know what value means for your clients, it’s easier for you to determine a price that covers your own costs and takes the value of your social media marketing services into account.

How Can KIOPI Help You Build Out Your Social Media Accounts

Being organized and providing effective social media account services is the best way to grow your social media accounts. Marketers with higher social media manager salaries are those who are extremely organized and can consistently deliver professional results for their clients. If you’re just beginning your journey as a social media campaign manager, you’ll want to have systems in place to help keep you organized.

Managing multiple clients on multiple social media networks takes time and skill, but KIOPI can help!

Let’s see how.

Social Media Content Calendar

The single best way to stay organized when managing social media marketing campaigns is by creating a social media marketing calendar. KIOPI’s social media marketing calendar can help save you time, stay organized, and make sure that you’re always one step ahead of your deliverables.

KIOPI’s social media calendar lets you schedule your social media content and overview all of your upcoming social media posts, as well as your completed posts.

At KIOPI, we understand the importance of having a professional social marketing planner, being able to track what you’ve previously posted, plan social content in advance, and coordinate your efforts to make sure you’re on track with clients’ expectations.

Social Media Scheduling

KIOPI’s social media scheduling tool allows social media managers to work smart, not hard. Use our social media scheduling tool to schedule your social media content across one social media platform or across multiple social media platforms. Post to Facebook accounts, Twitter accounts, Instagram accounts, LinkedIn accounts, and Google My Business pages seamlessly.

Whether you’re a dedicated account manager for one client or if you’re working with a social media agency running several large accounts, having a social media scheduling tool will make your job much easier.

Social Media Analytics

If you’re just starting out as a social media manager, you may not realize that you actually need to track data to ensure your clients are getting results and a favorable return on investment.

You can create all of the social media content you’d like, but if the content doesn’t resonate with your client’s target customer base, then your client won’t have a great ROI.

KIOPI’s social media analytics tool provides you with the data you need to make informed decisions for your clients’ social media marketing strategies. You can monitor social media traffic and use KIOPI’s analytics tool to determine the best times for posting for each specific client you work with.

Grow Your Social Media Marketing Business with KIOPI

Social media advertising and marketing can be an extremely valuable aspect of any company’s online marketing strategy. Learning how to strategically create and distribute social media content can help you grow your business as a social media marketing professional.

At KIOPI, we want to help you grow as you help your clients grow!

For many entrepreneurs and small business owners, pricing is the most difficult part of the job. The same is certainly true for social media pricing, so don’t get discouraged if you’re stuck on this step. If you need any advice or social media marketing tips, feel free to reach out to our online marketing professionals at KIOPI. We’re here to help!