What do social media companies actually do?

12 years ago

You still have to come up with content and post? Yeah what exactly do they do? I'd ask them.

Social media management is about marketing and PR. Interacting with customers, getting the word out, etc..If I were to hire a social media company I'd expect them to come up with content. You need to tell them what's going on with your business, what image you want to put out there, etc. but then the specifics should be up to them.

But every company does things differently. Maybe they do something that is worth the money, figure out what exactly it is that they do and determine if you could do it yourself. Social media really isn't as difficult as most consultants make it appear to be. And if it's a time factor you can hire personal assistants for $5 an hour, or even automate your posting schedule with HootSuite.

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Jon Patrick 12 years ago

When someone is selling you a service, they should be able to tell you specifically what they are going to do for you... and it should be your first question.
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MarcusJohnson

11 years ago

Originally Posted by Dan Allard

You still have to come up with content and post? Yeah what exactly do they do? I'd ask them.

Social media management is about marketing and PR. Interacting with customers, getting the word out, etc..If I were to hire a social media company I'd expect them to come up with content. You need to tell them what's going on with your business, what image you want to put out there, etc. but then the specifics should be up to them.

But every company does things differently. Maybe they do something that is worth the money, figure out what exactly it is that they do and determine if you could do it yourself. Social media really isn't as difficult as most consultants make it appear to be. And if it's a time factor you can hire personal assistants for $5 an hour, or even automate your posting schedule with HootSuite.

I definitely agree...Just hire someone to do a few social media tasks for you for 3-5$ an hour. Posting on hootsuite can be a great idea too. A friend of mine tried this one and its doing well. You can't do everything all at once you will still need to hire someone to post on hootsuite and research on good content to share on your social network accounts.

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JohnMcCabe

12 years ago

Sounds like someone bought one of those "how to get rich fleecing the offline rubes" courses. Sorry, I meant "how to get rich as an offline/online consultant."

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Carl Fridsjö

12 years ago

5000-7000$? did you add an extra zero to that by mistake?

I myself own a social media business and have some clients who, like you, don't want the hassle of coming up with creative ideas and posting content, interacting with fans etc. and we do all of that for them.

Except the obvious there's a lot of benefits, free up your time, they might do a better job then you to engage the fans, being up to date with facebook changes in general, changes of terms & conditions etc.

Honestly if they're not even clear with what they actually do and the benefits it will have for you I personally wouldn't even think of hiring them.

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J Bold

12 years ago

Wow, yeah, try asking him exactly what he does and explain you are not some numbskull who knows nothing about marketing online.

It could all be warranted and it could all be a nonsense fee just to make them rich but I'd really like to know what they do for that kind of money, ha ha.

I think there's an important lesson, here.

When giving services to offline business just don't charge a lot of money because you think you can. How about charging what the services are worth and give real value and service? That's what people want...

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jkhdsf

12 years ago

Haha yeah it seems pretty ridiculous to me too.

I talked to another company who will charge me $800 for a month and a half campaign where he will create facebook and twitter pages, run the campaigns for me, come up with promotions, etc.

So basically, one company wanted to charge me $5-7k for...seemingly nothing. And this other company will charge me a fraction of that for specific, measurable benefits.

Thanks for the tips guys. I didn't understand it either, but I figured maybe I'm missing something

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ankur sharma

12 years ago

Here's what social media does

1) Their basic task is to give eye balls to your offer. They will increase fan base, try to hook up different interesting stories for young masses.

2) Will keep unwanted comments, negative comments out of your facebook page.

3) Than, you have to tets, whether these eyeballs are generating sales or not. If not, ask your social media companies to change their strategies.

Not all companies want sales from their facebook fan pages. Lot of them want branding. Obviously, further down the line, these people will turn into potential buyers. But, you as a company owner should know your "goals". Then, having a dedicated team to execute your plan is priceless.

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Boga 12 years ago

$5000-7000 is a little excessive unless they are creating content and campaigns designed to be 3-6 month in scope.
The going rate for an experienced VA( virtual assistant) starts around $25 an hour and Ive seen it go as high as $75 an hour for a VA who is also managing your blogs, up to 5 landing pages and creating you ROI reports every month.

Good luck and smart idea to ask others about something your gut was probably screaming out loud for a second opinion.
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- fluffythewondercat 12 years ago
  
  A restaurant? Seems to me you need someone who can:
  
  1. Come up and connect with thousands of *local* Facebook users
  2. Identify influential *local* bloggers and contact them
  
  I'm honestly not sure social media is the best use of your marketing dollars here. Traditional marketing (clever newspaper ads, coupon inserts in mailers) may work far better.
  
  fLufF
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cenmegasys

12 years ago

Your business is mostly done offline, why not seek for company that engage in offline marketing, that can be able to bring your service or product to the door step of potential clients.
Where social media company help you advertise your company online to its already made friends or fans.

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JohnMcCabe

12 years ago

When you say "pop up restaurant", are you talking about the ones that will rent out a house or other venue and be open for a single night or weekend? Then the next weekend, they open in another location?

If so, you want your social media people to be connecting you to local foodies and food bloggers. You want them building foodie fans and followers who will look forward to you announcing where you will be and what your menu will look like. Make your openings an event.

A lot of successful food trucks get all the business they can handle by picking a good location and then announcing it via FB and Twitter...

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jkhdsf

12 years ago

Thanks for the tips guys. Yes, to clarify, this is not a permanent restaurant.

A pop up restaurant is "here today, gone tomorrow". There's an element of secrecy and an underground feeling to it. It won't be around long enough to advertise through traditional advertising.

It will spread via bloggers, newspaper articles, and most importantly - word of mouth. So social media will be an important asset here.

We've opted to just do it ourselves. The pricing was ridiculous.

Anybody got an idea for a marketing strategy through social media? I want to sell all the tickets out and build hype & demand for future events.

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JohnMcCabe 12 years ago

As I mentioned, you want to make your opening an event. See if you can get a local (or better) celebrity to come, and let it leak out. A celebrity chef or food critic would be best.

You might even invite several of them to a 'pre-launch event' held just for them. Impress them, and selling tickets will be the least of your worries...
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honestkr

12 years ago

You can hire someone to get twitter followers for very low price. It's better to hire someone and you can work on another part.

regards,
Honestkr

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seoxcell 12 years ago

Social Media is a platform through which you can promote your business products globally and for same Social Media company helps.
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CyborgX

11 years ago

Social media marketing which is known as SMO Social Media Optimization benefits organizations and individuals by providing an additional channel for customer support, a means to gain customer and competitive insight, recruitment and retention of new customers/business partners, and a method of managing their reputation online. Key factors that ensure its success are its relevance to the customer, the value it provides them with and the strength of the foundation on which it is built. A strong foundation serves as a stand or platform in which the organization can centralize its information and direct customers on its recent developments via other social media channels, such as article and press release publications.

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GuybrushT

11 years ago

That smells a bit fishy to me. Definitely ask them what exactly they're going to do for that kind of money!

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James Foster

11 years ago

This seams pretty simple to me.

Start a facebook fan page, run ads for the town you're working in. Target people who like foodie blogs, food network, etc. Get them to Like your fan page and tell them each week where you're setting up.

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webpeon

11 years ago

Sounds like they dont do a hell of alot tbh.

That aside.. anything food related sells well on social media being both a visual and impulse type product.

If you intend to manage this yourself you're best source of clients will be found in local buy and sell type groups. Why? Because people that go there are ready to buy (impulse). Throw in some tasty food type images and that takes care of the (visual) aspect. Point them to a biz page and that will allow you to build repeat clients, then drop events and you should be away laughing.

So many ways you can promote the food thing socially but if it were me i'd start with the above. Good luck

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bizgrower

11 years ago

Start following, friending, building a relationship with people in your area who already have a social media following for this type of thing: foodies, local fashion show crowd, the night life scene, entertainment and food critic journalists or bloggers, neighborhood bloggers or community sites...

Hire outgoing people to promote your event for a commission or flat fee by handing out flyers to people who are out on the town

Dan

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hirithk

11 years ago

Hi
There are lots of stuffs to be done in social media, social media marketing costs more, compare to other stuffs.
You can search good companies and go for it.

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VivekThakur

11 years ago

Its good that you know how to set up a facebook page, write content, and post content. But the benefit of hiring professionals is that they gave you guaranteed traffic, rank and a good place in search engine, so when user search query related to your keyword you should appears on first page of search engine. After that you can manage that by yourself, as you said you know write content, and post content and with a little bit use of social media.

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franktwin

11 years ago

Social Media companies usually have a network were they can advertise your pages, accounts etc... but none the less in the 20th it is very easy to build your network fairly easier without hiring third party companies.
You can pretty much do all the leg work yourself, you just have to do a little research but you do not have to hire a firm for thousands of dollars.

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What do social media companies actually do?

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