Last year, a local company hired me to manage their Facebook page. I came on for about a three-month period, boosting their post reach and their total followers.
Here is a graph showing their post reach for all of 2015. It’s quite clear when I came on and the period when I managed it. Also, it seems there was even a bit of residual effect from my efforts after I left, as their post reach — while still quite low after I left — was noticeably higher than at the beginning of the year.
Here’s a graph of total followers. Again, you can see when I came on, as their total page like count immediately shot up, and it continued to grow. Growth has been limited since I left in July. In fact, they saw follower decreases in the final quarter of 2015.
The most common reason I receive when a client cancels my services is that they’ll be managing their social media accounts internally. Unfortunately, the end result most often ends up being that no one manages it, or it’s managed quite infrequently. This particular client hasn’t posted since January 2016. Another former client hasn’t posted on Facebook since April 2016, another since February 2016, and another since January 2016. Of all my past clients, only one regularly posts on their Facebook page (although engagement is low outside of their Facebook page and their curate very little content).
And that’s just posting. That doesn’t even look out how infrequently they are engaging with others outside of their Facebook pages.
Remember, if you aren’t going to use social media effectively, reconsider having accounts at all.
Hiring a competent, skilled, and qualified social media manager is a cost-effective way to publish content and engage with others on social media. If you are going to manage it internally, ensure that you have the resources to do it effectively.