This might be a controversial blog post for some but someone needs to point it out. Social media “experts” are a dime-a-dozen these days. Businesses need to be very careful who they select based on the outcome they’re looking for. Here are 3 reasons why you should NEVER hire a traditional social media manager.

1) An overwhelming majority of all social media managers have never built a brick-and-mortar business or successful online company using the internet and social media.

How can you expect a company or person to help you dramatically grow your business with the internet when they don’t have the experience of personally doing it? Don’t hire someone that doesn’t have their own personal track record.

Hopefully that’s common sense.

The fact is most people waste time with social media and only a small percentage of businesses actually generate worthwhile profits with it. With inexperience comes mediocre strategy and set-backs.

A quote comes to mind and I believe I heard Don Crowther say it best…. “You can make friends on social media or you can make money, but you cannot do both.”

2) You’ll pay way too much if you’re going to hire someone with experience.

Now, let me just say, there IS a time and place to pay a premium. Price should not be a decisive factor, the proven track record should. You definitely will pay for quality in most cases

The average experienced social media manager salary (if they’re any good) starts at $75,000 / year. This is an employee you’re bringing-on, too, not an entrepreneur with a strong vision for growth.

Employees need guidance and direction in most cases.

For the average small business owner like a chiropractor, dentist, or attorney… paying $6,250 / month is not going to be realistically feasible, especially when the business is forced to commit to a 6 month contract or more.

A major brand will easily spend this monthly but it’s not advisable for small businesses doing under $500,000 per year.

You won’t be able to find some employee off of Craigslist and make your online marketing / social media as profitable as it could be either.

Too many businesses do this and they end up wondering why “social media doesn’t work.” The reality is, social media works, it’s just that your strategy is bad.

Managing social media is one thing. Managing and aggressively growing is another.

This is a big reason why the Automated Social Networking service was created, so that businesses could save money and pay a TINY fraction of the cost of what it would take to hire an experienced manager monthly.

3) Your social media manager won’t have enough time in the day to do what needs to be done.

In order to be successful, you should have these 16 things working for you 24/7 online

– Keyword / market research
– Facebook (and other social networ organic marketing
– Facebook ads (ppc) marketing
– Online video creation
– Online video submission / optimization
– Podcast creation / submission
– Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
– Articles written and submitted to top directories
– Press releases written and submitted online
– Google Places optimization
– Blog creation and post updates regularly
– Backlink building
– Directory submissions
– Google organic marketing
– Google Adwords PPC management / optimization
– Automated reports generated to track results

The fact is, it’s practically impossible to find a social media manager that has experience doing all of these things. If you do, expect to pay a very healthy premium. Truthfully, you must have a TEAM working of experts working on your behalf.

Social media is just one piece of the online marketing puzzle. If you negate the rest of the internet or you won’t get very far.

Knowing these 3 key points, you now have a simple choice to make.

Would you rather pay an inexperienced social media manager $75K / year to “try” to build your business with the internet?

OR…

Would you rather hire a specialized team of experts with a time-tested strategy (at a small fraction of the cost) that has experience selling MILLIONS of dollars worth of products / services from the web?

If you’re smart, committed to business growth, and choose the latter, here’s the perfect solution for your individual business needs.

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