How to Determine Your Social Media Marketing Budget in 2015

There are a lot of different factors that go into creating a marketing budget, but that doesn’t mean that the process has to be difficult. If you’re looking to create a budget that will be as effective as possible for your business model, we’re here to help. With that being said, it will be important to figure out where you want your budget to go before you start budgeting. You could keep your money flowing in-house, but there are also advantages to hiring outside agencies. Let’s take a look at some of the positive and negative aspects of in-house marketing and agency work.

In-house marketing

Positives

● If you keep your marketing efforts close, you can be sure that nothing will be leaked.

● Working with an employee ensures a deeper familiarity with your service or product.

Negatives

● You will likely have to pay someone even when you don’t need them.

● A full-time employee may wind up out of touch with what the public wants to see.

Agency marketing

Positives

● You can get a per-project price tag on the work that you need done.

● Agencies employ marketers who are focused on a variety of marketing strategies.

Negatives

● An agency employee might not be intimately familiar with your service or product.

● Agency employees often work on more than one project at a time, which could result in less effective and more generalized marketing content.

Ultimately, your budget will be determined first and foremost by what you can afford. However, if you can afford either option, it will be important to consider whether you want your marketing work to be done in-house or with a trusted agency. In the end, working with an agency will likely save you money, but there are benefits to working with full-time employees as well. Keep these concepts in mind before moving forward with a marketing budget.

Calculating the cost of social media marketing

Determining the costs of your social media marketing budget will depend not just on what you can afford, but also upon what your company needs. After all, if you’ve got an in-house marketing team that knows exactly what you need, chances are that your budget will be high and you will be able to focus on the most important aspects of social media for your company. However, if you’re working with less and considering help from a marketing agency, it will be important to figure out where your audience is and what they want to see. It’s easy to make a mistake with social media marketing, but a little research will help you to avoid any of those struggles.

Research your audience

Depending on what products or services you offer, chances are that your audience will be more likely to use specific social media sites over others to interact with you. In order to determine where your audience spends most of their time, you will need to perform some research. Determining where your audience is will help you to figure out where to focus your social media marketing budget. With that in mind, let’s take a look at some of the latest social media demographics to help you figure out where your viewers may be:

● Teens use Facebook and Instagram more than other social media networks

● LinkedIn is more popular than Twitter among U.S. adults

● By a small margin, more men are using Twitter than women

● Youtube reaches the 18-34 age demographic better than any single cable network

● Young Adults flock to Snapchat more than any other social media website

This information will help you decide where to focus your marketing budget by showing where your audience may be. For instance, if you’re trying to reach older adults, you might want to consider focusing more time and energy on LinkedIn. However, if the viewers you want to reach are teenagers, Facebook and Instagram will be absolute necessities.

Create a smart social media marketing budget

By focusing on specific social media websites, you can avoid wasting time and money on networks that might not serve your marketing needs. With a little bit of research, you should be able to figure out what your audience expects and where they are, making it easier to speak directly to the people who will be interested in your products or services. When it comes to social media, you don’t want to spread your budget too thin, but you don’t want to spread it too thick either. Finding the right balance is more than possible, especially in a digital age when there are plenty of metrics to help you figure out exactly where your focus should be. Build a smart social media budget, not a bloated one.

How to Determine Your Social Media Marketing Budget in 2015