Historically, the first 5 years of your business are supposed to be the most overwhelming. Having just past this milestone myself, I can say this is true. 

Many business owners decide to cut costs around their contractors and decide to take on the responsibility of wearing all the hats in their business. They decide to be the marketing team, accountant, maintenance and tech support. 

With how few businesses make it to that 5-year mark, the stress of being all the things your business needs can lead to burn out quicker than you’d realize. 

You might not even be aware of how stressful your life has become until you reach out to get help in the aspects of your business that could benefit from a specialist. I discovered this myself when I extended my team to include a content strategist to help me keep my business moving forward while i’m working on my clients projects. 

But then when do you decide to delegate? 

Luckily for business owners today, we can reach out to contractors to take on specific tasks, which means you don’t have the additional stress of having someone rely solely on you for their income—with the bonus of not having to pay the employee taxes and fees that go along with them. 

The first task that most people hire out for is, you guessed it, social media! It’s the task that takes a backseat most often in busy entrepreneurs daily lives, and most of my clients put hiring this out above even their bookkeeping. 

So how do you know when it’s time to hire for this position? 

Decide if Social Media is vital.

Social media marketing is huge. It’s a direct link to your customer’s pockets and, when done right, is an invaluable resource for your business. 

Most people looking for recommendations no longer call their mom or best friend. Facebook has made it so easy to look for recommendations that there is actual status type just for this interaction. 

So when their friends tell them about your business, do you want to have nothing available online for them to preview? No! Of course not. 

This doesn’t mean that Social Media is a vital task for your business. 

That’s right. I said it. You can choose if Social Media is vital for you at this time. Ask yourself a few of these questions to decide if it’s vital: 

• Do you have a product or service ready to buy right away? 

• Do you have an appropriate call to action ready that will lead to money in the bank? (i.e. book a free demo, get a sample, jump on a discovery call, etc.)

• Do you have enough product or time to take on new clients? If you’re maxed out on retainers, maybe it’s more important to hire help to take on that client work? 

• Do you have time to engage with your audience through the day? If not, maybe it’d be better to have someone ‘manning the phones’ as they say. 

• Do you know what you’re supposed to be posting? Maybe all you need is a content strategy (Link) made for you to follow? 

If you go through these, you could find that you don’t have time anymore to handle your social media because you oculd be using that time to make money instead. Or maybe you find you don’t have a product ready yet and you just need a strategy to get you started. 

Are you able to keep up with the changing landscape of social? 

Google is said to change its algorithm 500-600 times per year in a bid to stay on top of user trends. That means that some days it’s changing multiple times a day. 

We’re just putting a frame of reference in place, because while Social Media platforms don’t change them THAT often, they are still changing from week to week and month to month. 

A Social Media Manager has ‘stay on top of changes to social media’ in their job description, so that you don’t have to. It’s our aim to stay on top of trends, changes in the algorithms on multiple platforms—and adapt your strategy on the fly to stay ahead of them.

If you’re at the point in your career that you still have time to include these changes in your strategy and move to make corrections in reaction to them, you might not need a Social Media Manager yet.   

Your Social Media Strategy Needs An Update

First off, if you don’t have a strategy in place yet—let’s chat. Posting at random intervals and hoping it sticks does not a strategy make.

If you’ve been working from the same social media strategy for more than a year, this might be a good time to hire a social media manager. 

Creating a social media strategy is a part of the package for contractors completing this work for you, so you can save yourself several thousands of dollars by hiring a contractor to create a new one and execute it for you.  

A social media manager will also be able to determine what your primary goals are for the year and translate them into social media content and future campaigns. You’ll have a regularly updated calendar of promotions and content from your contractor, freeing you up to turn your attention over to sales or working with clients. 

You want to start building your brand. 

At some point in your business, you’re going to have to make a decision to shift out of sales/marketing growth and focus on building your brand. This usually happens after at least a year in business when you understand your clients, you have steady sales coming in and your income is stable. 

Your brand is a lot of things, but for this we’ll focus on what your brand means on social media. A brand is worth exactly as much as it’s perceived value from it’s audience. So business owners looking to build their brand will be shifting their focus to engagement and consistency online. 

Social media managers are invaluable in this process. They are constantly on high alert of each message you receive, what reviews are coming in, and comments that are being posted about your brand. 

They are aware of how to conduct themselves within each platform, representing your brand in the way that each platform's users want to consume your content. 

You’re not ready for an employee

While part of my business is working as a manager for other brands, I also spend a good amount of time working with companies to train their staff to take on the social media responsibilities. 

For a company who already has employees, this is often a better choice for them as it’s cheaper to hire an employee in the long run who can manage your social and help with other tasks when they have time.

However, if you’re not in a place to take on the responsibility of an employee, using a contractor for your social media might be a better way to expand your presence online. We’ll take a look at the pros and cons here: 

Advantages of Hiring a Social Media Marketing Agency or a Freelancer

• It might be more financially feasible to hire on a monthly basis. 

• The social media manager may have fresh new ideas that you may not have considered.

• The social media manager may not be aware of the culture associated with your brand and can bring in new innovative ideas that could work well.

• They also most likely have experience working with similar brands, which can also help with best practices, what works in your particular industry and what doesn’t.

Advantages of training an In-House Employee

• Know the inside of the company culture and what is involved.

• Employees understand the brand boundaries when brainstorming campaign ideas.

• Can do some other administrative tasks while handling social media. 

• Can often be taken on by someone already doing the content writing/content strategy for your marketing department. 

You want to start tracking/reporting

At some point in your business, usually around when you start running sales campaigns, you will want to start tracking your stats across all your social media platforms to see where you can expect growth in your business. 

Having a manager who is in charge of all your social media efforts can help you improve existing campaigns and projects. 

A social media manager can also keep your brand on top of things—switching objectives, creative, or content if your current efforts aren’t doing as well as they could be. 

A social media manager will check their campaigns regularly, turning under-performing ads off and optimizing other campaigns to make sure your money is being well spent and your goals are being met. 

Some campaigns will have a continuing success and can lead to other great ideas, which wouldn’t necessarily be the case if you didn’t have someone dedicated to these efforts around the clock.

Ask Around

After reading this I hope that you have a better understanding of if you’re ready to hire a social media manager or strategist or if you still need to work a little bit before getting there. 

Having someone who can contribute 100% of their best efforts in their expertise to your brand’s strategy and goals will yield a much better result than having an intern or low-level employee posting content at random on behalf of your brand.

Still not sure what you’re next plan of action should be? Let’s chat!