How many are you offering social media help?

[callthatgirl]

I have looked at a lot of other Technibblers websites and some offer facebook help or fanpages, some are offering full training.

I'm just curious to those that are doing it, what are your prices and processes to manage it?

Because of the changes with CTG in the 4th quarter and my restructure, I have now opened a social media services division. Which should align nicely with the tech support we currently offer (am getting out of hard core hardware and onsite networking jobs). I came up with some nice packages and have sold 2 so far, at $500 a month retainer for up to 10 hours of work. $300 setup fee. We have upsells too for Youtube videos, craigslist, hootsuites, websites and powerpoint help, etc. We also are offering per hour social media help at $60 an hour for those that need help with specific things. Also we will be offering ala carte services; blogging for SEO, just LinkedIn, etc.

I have my team cross trained now, all the social media support teams know how to remote into clients computers and my tech team knows how to do the social media. It's a nice synergy so far! I have 8 more clients on the deck waiting to be on board. Those 8, all asked me if I was offering social media the same week I was finishing my procedure manual, I took it as a big sign of times changing. My clients are seeing us as "social media helpers" and I could not resist this time around.

For those that know SEO, in our regular 10 hour package includes Blogging for SEO purposes that includes by hand tracking to insure results. It's pretty cool, don't use any tools for that. Our clients were pretty worried about SEO snake oil going on, so we relieve them of that worry.

 

[Amanda]

I offer it as an extension of our services (as well as offering general marketing and PR advice). I also offer help with Excel, Word, and Power Point.

For MS Office work, we charge $30/hour. For Social Media help I charge $50/hour. It's been pretty successful and adds value to our brand.

I'm also a photographer and assist with various photographers in the area. I have offered my photography services to businesses with varying rates depending on what they need and length of the job. Photography has it's own pricing structure that is separate from the business.

 

[Amanda]

I should add that most of the businesses that have taken advantage are small mom & pop shops who just want a facebook/twitter/google+ set up and then a tutorial on how to run the page. I offering on-going support if they need it, but facebook isn't rocket science so most seem to grasp it quickly.

 

[4ycr]

I have done some, not on my website though. Again it has been small one man or partner business that have taken me up on it.

 

[TenYardFight]

Looks like a nice product offering Lisa. We, too, are sometimes asked to do this. Unless, its a big project, like 20 plus hours, we bill our I.T. rate. I suppose if I wanted more of this type of work, I would be more aggressive in our pricing. I'm focusing instead on trying to get triple digits for all of our time (eventually).

 

[callthatgirl]

TYF, I was going to go with our tech support pricing too, but then I figured to eventually gain a competitive edge and also because we are not marketing this as "marketing" I lowered our price to be at nice "Say yes" point. What's so interesting is that those marketing companies want to hire us to backfill for them. I never thought of that when I started this out last month.

Amanda, I agree...it's not heavy duty stuff we are doing.

 

[TenYardFight]

I think you priced it right for someone who has the capacity and is looking to build it fast. I'm not surprised at all you could become an outsourced provider for others offering these services. The world is so full of middle men!

 

[TenYardFight]

I should add that most of the businesses that have taken advantage are small mom & pop shops who just want a facebook/twitter/google+ set up and then a tutorial on how to run the page. I offering on-going support if they need it, but facebook isn't rocket science so most seem to grasp it quickly.

To do Facebook right, they need to not just post offers. They need to write original content, even if it is just a few sentences. It needs to be useful to the reader and/or build the perceived expertise of the company. Wouldn't you agree Amanda, that writing is the bottleneck?