How Much To Charge?

That seems pretty fair, although I am sure quality means everything, I think if you are doing all that work and your client see's a potential significant result, I do not even think he/she would mind if you up the cost a little.

Quality is everything... !

Cheers,

I think Twitter posting is a MUST and even more important than Facebook updates simply because Twitter influences search results much more.

Your charge seems reasonable and as franktwin mentioned, you may bump it up if you start to produce some noticeable improvements for your client.

"...because Twitter influences search results much more." Thanks, kww, that's good to know.

I think that sounds rather cheap... I would work out a week how much time you're going to put into it and then put a value on how much time is worth and then go from there.

To manage social media effectively and get a positive return on your results can be a full time job!

I dont think your going to do very well at the $200 per week price point. You state : "I'm a newbie to Social Media Marketing" yet you propose to run there fan page and bring them "bunches of enthusiastic followers".

With all due respect it sounds like you have the drive and the motivation, but you dont have the experience, work history, or reputation to justify a $800 per month cost.

My suggestion is to start off at a very low price point. $100 per month or so. Let them pay you to learn (even if its only a little pay). Build up a reputation , a work history, and most importantly a list of satisfied customers who will give you references. Then when you have these things raise your prices to a level that is proper for the expert you will have become.

When I was a freelance programmer this is the exact strategy I used. At first I bid low on freelance jobs just to get them. I did an excellent job, gave great service and built up a reputation. Before long I was ranked in the 99th percentile among over 100,000 freelancers. At that point I raised my prices massively. Even with the huge price increase I actually didnt even have to bid anymore, people just kept inviting me to do there jobs.

Social Media Marketing in it's simplest form is to post content on social media site. The thing is there are MANY businesses that either do not have the time and/or the knowledge of how to complete this simple task that so many take for granted.

So if you are charging for just posting content because they do not have the time and/or knowledge...then you should not figure out your hourly rate, you should be figuring out what that time/knowledge is worth to the company which usually is quite a bit higher than ones hourly rate for a simple task.

How much time do you think the average business owner, manager, etc would take to complete 4-5 posts a week on 3-4 social sites AND create/post 2-3 short videos per month. That time is money and is a premium amount of time because they do not have to spend extra up front time learning how to complete the task.

So if you are just taking the content they give you and posting on social media properly for them...then a few hundred bucks a week is decent for that type of work, since you are saving some businesses 3-5 hours a week.

IF you are actually researching and writing the content, finding the images, consulting with them on what types of content should be targeted, etc etc. Then you should be compensated more because that is more like 8-10 a week if not more that the business would have to spend on social media. This might take you a few hours a week but that is why they are paying more money.

Then if you are truly doing advanced and professional social media marketing, you are helping them create long term social strategies that align with their business and other marketing. You are using advanced marketing techniques to drive targeted and prospected customers to their doorstep. Testing campaigns to increase their ROI and Conversions...etc etc etc. You are MARKETING for them which costs a lot of money when it comes to print media, television, magazines, branding, etc etc. There is no reason why you should be charging low amounts for that type of knowledge and task completion.

Now if you are new to the game as you say...find out what you are GOOD at in terms of social media marketing. It could be content creation, interacting on social sites with followers, creating coupons/offers, creating strategies, testing campaigns etc etc...then market yourself with those skills and learn the rest with testing on your own time. Once you find a new technique that works or have mastered a task to proficiency...add that to your marketable skill and see if your existing clients are interested in adding it to their campaigns...if not, you can now just add it to your client prospecting funnel.

I do not follow the "price low because you are new" model. I make sure I can do specific things well and charge for those skills at a regular industry rate. Anything else is short changing yourself in terms of money and the clients in terms of you learning(and most likely messing up) on their dime. If I can not do specific things, then I either do not get into them at all OR I take my own time to learn just as if I was going to school for that skill. You will learn WAY more about a IM Skill this way that by fumbling through it for a client while trying to get paid. This is because as long as the client is happy, there is no real reason to get better at a skill.

My lowest monthly package for social media marketing is $200 bucks a month. That gets a client 1 hour a month of my time on Skype, phone or in person for local plus 1 post a week to 1 social network with all the content supplied by them and a monthly report about that social network. It takes me 30 minutes tops to review and post the content for the entire month if that...the reports are automatic and the 1 hour consulting session is more to keep my face/voice in front of the client for upsells, referrals and to give value in terms of helping them learn about things online.

Social media is a good business to get into for the future and I hope it works out well for you.