According to recent surveys, the average company spends nearly $350 every single day on social media marketing. Worried about numbers like that? Don’t be. Social media advertising doesn’t have to cost your company that much money, but creating a better social ad budget guide for 2022 to help you inform your overall spending is nothing short of a must. What can you do to make it happen? Keep reading.
The Benefits of a Social Media Budget
Before you actually begin building your social media budget, you may wonder why you should even bother. There are actually a number of reasons you’ll want to consider a social media budget for your team.
First, it may help them focus on the campaign at hand rather than the numbers. If they know what they have to spend, they can spend quite a bit more time coming up with clever viral campaigns.
More than that, though, it could help them better decide what is most important when it comes to social media. Often there are hidden costs you may not consider, and some of them are necessary, but some of them aren’t. Setting clear guidelines from the outset can help your team decide what should take priority.
Finally, a good budget helps you better define what your ROI is. You’ll know exactly how much money you’re spending on a given campaign and what you’re actually getting in return from that campaign.
The Nuts and Bolts of a Social Media Budget
Not sure what goes inside a social media budget? It’s a fairly simple document to create. First, you’ll decide a period that you’re budgeting for - usually something like a week, a quarter, a month, or an entire year - then you’ll begin to decide what you should spend. Keep in mind that there’s no real rule of thumb as far as what to spend on social media. Most businesses spend somewhere between two and ten percent each year on marketing, and social media should be a decent part of those numbers given the number of people you’ll reach there over other channels.
A number of pieces go inside those spending dollars. Content is maybe the biggest of those pieces. You’ll need to develop photos, videos, graphics, and text that people will want to see. Choose the type of content your customers are most likely to consider, then create high-quality pieces they’ll love. If you have an Instagram-type audience, for example, much of your budget in the content area needs to go to beautiful photography your audience will truly connect with. You may need to consider the cost of professional photography to really reign them in.
Beyond content, you’ll need a number of tools to manage your project. These might be design and editing tools, but they’re also likely to be social media management tools, analysis tools, and customer service tools to ensure that you’re doing as much as you can with your social media. The cost on this one can vary widely, as larger teams with a bigger social presence need to spend more in this space.
Paid advertising is another space where you’ll need to allot part of your budget. The ultimate goal of any social media marketer is to get plenty of organic traffic, but in many cases, you’ll want to consider things like Instagram Ads or other paid advertising on a given platform. Paid ads typically translate directly to additional engagement and more sales, in the long run, so don’t take those options out of the mix just to save money.
Social media budgets today include one more key factor - influencers. The rise of social media influencers has been coming for some time, and when you collaborate with one, you’ll see a serious difference in your traffic immediately. You’ll need to pay the influencer AND pay to boost the influencer’s post. Keep in mind that more popular influencers here mean more money in the budget.
Making It Work
Once you know what the numbers look like within your plan, it’s time to pull it together and make it work. That begins with a better understanding of your overall goals. You need to know what you hope to achieve with social media marketing in the first place - maybe even before you start your spreadsheet for your budget.
Figure out who your target audience is, then understand what they most search for in the world of social media. What topics are trending among them, and what are the most likely to do once they meet your products or services? Will they buy immediately? Will they fill out a contact form and talk to someone? Will they book a free session with you? When you know what you hope they’ll do, you can set those target goals and begin to understand what the true cost of social media advertising might be in the upcoming year.
Your social ad budget guide is the single best way to stay on track as you continue to develop your company’s upcoming campaigns. To learn more about how we can help enhance your company’s social media presence, contact us today.
