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What is The Going Rate…

by | Mar 11, 2012 | 2 comments

 

It is interesting Sunday afternoon, I’m sitting her just getting  over a cold while searching for contracts and something hit me, “What is the going rate for a Social Media Consultant”?

Side note:

Sorry everyone for the recent posts on courses, sales posts and these business inquiry posts. Like I said before I’m rebuilding my business and would really appreciate your help.  Starting on Monday I will be doing more educational posts, just need your help to figure some things out.  It’s better to work with a team vs. alone 🙂 

Interesting question because there are so many factors to consider like:

  1. My cost to be a Social Media Consultant
  2. Managing my rate so that it covers my business and personal expenses.
  3. Not charging to much so people don’t want to work with me
  4. Not charging to little that people don’t respect the value.

I did a post early called “The Truth about Business” where in the post I talked about how to figure  out your rates by breaking down your monthly expenses.

I figured out my rate would be $100 per hour which after doing some market research I see there is a sliding scale for Social Media Consultants.  The low end is $25 per hour and the high end is $500 per hour what I have seen so far.

The other factor Social Media Consultants have added is a on going maintenance fee to manage their clients Social Networks and help them grow their following. Which the rates I’ve seen are as low as $50 per month up to $5,000 per month which I am sure that’s for larger Corporations.

It’s interesting to see how these rates fluctuate but the service are still pretty much the same which is

  1. Design, implement and maintain
  2. Content creation and distribution
  3. Community relations
  4. Customer Service
  5. Crowd Sourcing
The rest are just bells and whistles that really don’t mean much because no one can promise they can get you 10,000 followers in 30 days that all 10,000 are going to purchase your products. If you are Coke, Pepsi, Apple…etc that is doable but they have a house hold name. If you’re an up and coming company it is going to take consistent relationship building and proper distribution.  I have seen consultants promise this type of service to companies to later find out yeah they might have a following of 10,000+ people but nothing is happening. Sales are not increasing, no one is liking or commenting on their posts and the company feels Social Marketing doesn’t work.
 
 Which is just like any other marketing campaign the more eye’s you have looking at your company consistently over a longer period of time will increase traffic flow as long as you content has 3 main factors are:
 
  • It’s the first
  • It’s the best
  • or has the WOW factor
  • or a combination of any of the 3
 Then this will increase engagement and potentially increase revenue. That is just how simple Social Marketing works.  Sorry a little rant there, this is because it is frustrating to go into meetings where a so called Social Media Consultant has promised 10,000+ followers and how that’s going to benefit the company profits. The company thinks this is the way Social Marketing works and buys in to later find out that they just purchased 10,000+ people who are not even people half the time, most of the time they are just ghost accounts the consultant has purchased.
 
The frustrating point for me is going into a company that has had this happen and trying to re-educate them how Social Marketing really works. Which is hard because it’s like talking to a buddy who just got cheated on by the girl of his dreams. Trying to tell him that “dude there are amazing women out there, that was just a one of the bad ones”.
 

If you have ever been cheated on you know the response you receive.

  • Women suck!
  • I will never get into a committed relationship again
  • I will never trust another women again
  • …etc

There is no difference when people work with a bad Social Media consultant.

Here is my question to you readers

  • What has your experience been with Social Media Marketing consultants?
  • Have you had a bad experience?
  • What have you or would you pay to have a REAL consultant work with you and your company?
Comment below
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

2 Comments

  1. jess
    jess on February 20, 2013 at 10:03 pm

    Hey!! Did you ever figure out a good pricing structure.. i’m in the same boat right now…. HARDEST PART!

    Reply
    • Brandon
      Brandon on March 12, 2013 at 2:59 pm

      Hey Jess,

      The best pricing structure is to figure out what your floor is for all your expenses. Then figure out how much you want to work per week, per day and understand your hourly rate from there. If you have a question and want more details send me an e-mail at info@knssconsulting.com

      Reply

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