{"id":13666,"date":"2017-02-16T05:00:11","date_gmt":"2017-02-16T11:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shipstation.com\/?p=13666"},"modified":"2024-10-09T10:15:31","modified_gmt":"2024-10-09T15:15:31","slug":"outsource-social-media-efforts-inexpensively","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shipstation.com\/blog\/outsource-social-media-efforts-inexpensively\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Outsource Your Social Media Efforts Inexpensively"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This post is contributed by Margie Zable Fisher, president of Zable Fisher Public Relations, which specializes in e-commerce and product P.R. and publicity. Her company offers free publicity opportunities and tips here<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Social media is not only a time suck, but it\u2019s hard to keep up with the latest and greatest tips and techniques for making those efforts successful. For those reasons, you\u2019ve probably considered outsourcing all or part of your social media marketing activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today there are a variety of social media outsourcing options. Here are some that won\u2019t break the bank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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  1. Use a company that provides the ability to post gigs and pick freelancers for jobs, such as Upwork<\/a> or Fiverr<\/a>.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
    \"upwork_use_on_white\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Bryan Clayton, CEO of GreenPal<\/a>, a Nashville, TN-based company which is like an Uber for lawn care, has had excellent success with Upwork.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Clayton has great praise for his Upwork contract worker, Mariam Tumanyan, based in Eastern Europe, who has been managing the company\u2019s social media accounts for under $300 per month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Tumanyan\u2019s efforts have been especially successful in increasing the company\u2019s Instagram account<\/a>, increasing followers from 300 to over 9,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    You might be wondering what it is exactly that Tumanyan does as part of her social media responsibilities. First, she researches images related to the industry and posts them on Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook pages with relevant hashtags.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    She also interacts with people interested in the company\u2019s niche, follows them, likes and comments on their photos to grow engagement for the brand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Says Clayton, \u201cI kind of like sitting back and watching it all just grow without my day-to-day grunt effort into it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    How to Find a Great Freelancer<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    With the large number of freelancers available on these sites, how do you find a good one? Clayton has some thoughts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    First, he had to put some work into finding the right person, by combing through dozens and dozens of profiles on Upwork.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    His recommendation for people searching on Upwork would be to set their parameters to be at least 100 billed hours and a rating of four stars and above.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Next, look at previous jobs they have completed on Upwork and read over those job descriptions and the feedback that clients left them. This is what gave Clayton a good sense when hiring the virtual assistant he ended up using. However, he worked with four different assistants before finally identifying Tumanyan as the candidate he wanted to develop a long-term working relationship with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    How Do You Define Social Media Success?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cBeing active and growing our Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest accounts is difficult to quantify as a direct sales channel,\u201d says Clayton. \u201cHowever, having an engaged audience on each has helped to reinforce our brand presence. Ultimately we look at social media as an engagement and retention tool rather than a customer acquisition tool.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    1. Work with a Virtual Assistant.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

      A virtual assistant (VA) can tackle many of the everyday clerical, scheduling, and technical aspects that keep your business operating smoothly. Virtual assistants work remotely from their own location, and can be based in your city or on the other side of the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      While many folks are familiar with VAs who handle travel arrangements, bookkeeping and document creation, many VAs now provide social media support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      HOPE Unlimited<\/a> is a Simpsonville, SC-based virtual assistance company whose VAs provide a variety of support services. Social media support is generally two hours a week or less, which includes keeping content consistently flowing, and some basic monitoring of comments and stats. The company also has a Social Media Strategist on the team for those clients who want a more engaged approach with more hours applied to their channels per month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      HOPE Unlimited offers two ways clients purchase basic social media implementation services: Retainer packages of 5, 10 or 20 hours, or a pay-as-you go option, all times based on 15-minute increments. Fees are as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n