How Much is Social Media Marketing Costing Companies in 2017

These days, social media marketing is in many ways more important than print media marketing. Here is what it is typically costing to engage in social media marketing in 2017.

Demographics are verifying what is pretty much obvious. The largest portion of consumers (between the age group of 16 to 60) is spending a significant amount of time of their day browsing through the internet. While a big number browses using desktops and other devices, most users are also using their smartphones to keep up with the world.

To match pace with the tech savvy consumer community, in the current times, it has become imperative for every organization to market its products and services online. Everyone is doing it – be it the technology companies selling IT services or a local real estate agency. It is almost like - if you are not online, you are nowhere.

Social media marketing is still a relatively new idea for most startups and proprietorship companies. And it can cost anywhere between 1000 AED to 50,000 AED depending on the platforms you decide to market your products in and the resources you are using. If you decide to do it yourself, you should definitely market your product in – Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Instagram. The typical initial investment required in these platforms range from 4000 AED to 6000 AED.

There are essentially three services that companies pay for in social media marketing. They are:

1. Content Development – This is also the first step of the process of social media marketing. Relevant content is created and then posted/submitted across all social media platforms. The process is informally known as ‘being active’ on social media.

2. Generating fan base – The more the number of followers your product page has, the more footfall you will get on your product. This helps in generating awareness about your products and services.

3. Paid Social Advertising – Through paid advertising on social media, you will reach out to millions of prospective customers. It also helps in branding and creating visibility of your product and services.

Many companies employ freelancers or if they have the resources, then - in-house experts for social media marketing of their organization. The trend these days is however to outsource any such needs to companies which exclusively do social media marketing.

How much the social media marketing will cost your company will depend on the number of people working on your product promotion. There is an large number of resources required to make a perfect social media market campaign. In big social media marketing companies, writers, designers and social media strategists often collaborate and come together to design campaigns based on your needs and audience reach expectations.

Freelancers who do social media marketing for companies are typically easy to find and employ. They can be hired from any of the online platforms where they register themselves for the same purpose. A freelance with 2 to 5 years of experience offering end-to-end social media marketing services will approximately charge around 200 AED for each hour of work put in. However, the reliability factor in freelancers is low. They are not always available for work and cannot be summoned at will.

There is nothing better than hiring an in-house social media marketing expert. However, a single resource with basic qualification who does end-to-end social media marketing work costs nothing less than 1,65,000 AED a year excluding benefits. And usually, if you intend to run multiple social media campaigns, it is not enough to just hire a single resource.

More and more small and medium sized companies are tying up with social media marketing agencies for their online advertising needs. It is much easier and hassle free. The organization simply needs to provide a basic understanding of its target audience and set the correct expectations in terms of audience reach. Based on those inputs, the marketing team of the agency creates a plan. A basic social media marketing implementation typically starts from 3000 AED per month onwards. That however depends on the social media platform inclusions you finalize on.

The advantages of employing a social media marketing agency in Dubai is that you can get a variety of options to choose from at various price levels. However, it is important to take a package which is most suitable to your needs. Most social media marketing companies in Dubai will however ask you for a 6 to a 12-month contract since the impact of the social media marketing is not easy to discern before that time.