How much time spent on your social media space is enough, too much or not enough? It’s the magic million dollar question, if there even is such a number. Certainly it helps to assess whether you even can do it on your own, or if you need to bring more of your team in, or if you need to outsource the operation all together?
In our business at TomorrowToday we could never keep our social media spaces as active as we do without a team in place playing their role. To give you an idea of how much work is put in…..
- We have 6 of our team who contribute a post towards our blog each week. Everyone is assigned a particular day to contribute.
- We have a Twitter profile, a FaceBook page, and a LinkedIn profile.
- We send out an information/education electronic newsletter (e-zine) and a more marketing/sales orientated electronic newsletter once each month (two in total each month)
- 5 of our team have personal blogs they keep updated
- All of our team (9 people) have Twitter, FaceBook and LinkedIn accounts they use partially or completely for business.
- At least 3 of our team contribute to our YouTube and PodCast feeds.
- To aid all of this we recently purchased each of our SA team an iPad to ensure we all have the best tools and apps for sharing our research, both externally and internally.
Add up the time invested in Social Media within TomorrowToday and you’ve got a large number. I’m fairly certain I spend at least 20 hours a week engaged with social media in some way, shape or form.
Back to the question I started with…. how much is enough?
Inc. recently posted an article looking at some research around how much is enough?
Social media takes a lot of time, but it pays off, says a report released today. Ninety percent of marketers surveyed say that social media is important for their business, with the self employed and small business owners with two or more employees “more likely to strongly agree,” says the 2011 Social Media Marketing Report, which surveyed some 3,300 marketers.
In their study more than half the respondents are using social media for more than 6 hours per week, and 15% are spending more than 20 hours per week blogging, tweeting and updating their social media platforms.
And as for outsourcing….
Wondering if you can (or should) hire someone to do this sort of marketing for you? Just 28 percent of businesses are outsourcing some portion of their social media marketing, says the survey.
Where, exactly, are efforts being spent? Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and blogs were the top four social media tools. Facebook overtook Twitter to take the top spot in the study this year (in 2010 it was Twitter). But some three-quarters (77 percent) of marketers plan to increase their use of YouTube and video marketing this year—a virtual gold rush.