Social media has become one of the best places to find top businesses. Individuals talk about the businesses they like, make complaints, and share their thoughts here.
As a small business owner, having social media channels ensures you’re up to date on conversations revolving around your business. You also need to be able to promote your brand and engage with customers positively.
To achieve these goals, you need a social media strategy that works.
If you’re new to social media, this is going to be difficult, so hiring a social media marketing freelancer is one option.
In this guide, we’ll let you in on the benefits of getting a freelancer for social media marketing and where to find these individuals.
Need to hire a freelancer?
Hire elite freelance talent with WeSellTalent. From single gigs to large projects, our freelancers are ready to help.
7 Benefits of hiring a social media marketing freelancer
Social media has become a top destination for businesses looking to connect with a massive audience. It promotes customer engagement and allows you to reach individuals from around the world.
Although everyone can run a social media account, organically growing one can be challenging. This is why social media marketers are in demand. For a business account, these freelancers offer many benefits, and these are the top 7:
1. To grow your social media audience
The primary reason every business needs a freelancer is to build an audience. These freelancers know the right strategies and content to attract customers for your business.
Strategies that work for your business typically vary depending on the goals and target audience. However, social media marketers know what works for various conditions, helping your business organically grow its audience.
2. Quick access to specialized skills
Social media marketing freelancers have skills that set them apart.
Some of them are experts in running Google Ads, using AI tools, analyzing data, and understanding search engine algorithms. Others have a solid background in community management, trend identification, and targeted social media management.
3. Easier to find the right fit
Finding someone to work for your business requires commitment. You’re investing time, money, and other resources to find an individual who aligns with what your brand stands for. Sometimes, finding the right person takes time, and you’ll need to let go of people.
With full-time staff, doing this repeatedly can quickly become expensive.
This is why hiring freelancers is often a better option. Most freelancers don’t need you to provide a workspace or equipment, which makes hiring cheap.
Plus, you typically pay freelancers on a project basis. So, if you find out they’re not a good fit for your business, you can pay for work done and terminate the contract. You don’t have to pay for unused vacation time, accrued benefits, or severance pay.
4. Scale your operations with ease
Social marketing usually involves running several campaigns. These may be product launches, giveaways, or brand awareness campaigns.
Most campaigns are seasonal, so your business will need to scale up or down as needed. With a social media manager, you can achieve this with ease.
Since you only have to pay per contract, you can hire freelancers when there is demand for their skill, and end the contract once you’ve achieved your result.
This makes freelancers a better option than full-time employees, who must be paid regardless of campaign demands.
5. To improve customer engagement
Marketing freelancers work to enhance customer engagement on your various channels. They do so by running contests and campaigns or posting content that promotes customer interactions.
Most marketers are also active community managers.
This means they are always present to respond to any mention, message, or comment that your business receives on its social media channels. Through these swift responses, they can foster an active community where customers are willing to interact.
While working to improve engagement, a skilled social media marketer will also monitor and analyse various metrics. This allows them to improve your business marketing strategy and align it more closely with business and customer needs.
6. No downtime due to onboarding
One of the benefits of hiring a social media manager is that you don’t need to spend time onboarding. This means the moment they accept the contract, they can start the job.
Freelancers are skilled individuals, so they’re familiar with most of the systems and tools they need to deliver your request. This expertise saves the time and money your business would have spent training a new employee to fit into the role.
7. They provide a new perspective
Freelancers are outsiders to your business, so they’re not bound by most of the rules that apply to full-time employees. This gives them an opportunity to think outside the box and provide a more unique approach to various tasks.
Many skilled freelancers have also worked in various industries. As a result, they’re exposed to different ways of achieving a goal. This wealth of experience gives them several options for handling your social media marketing.
How to pick the right freelancer for your business?
Freelancing is now a high-demand service, with more people offering their skills.
Among these individuals are those who are between jobs, experienced hires, and newbies. To get the best freelancer for your business, these are the things you should consider:
1. Clearly define the project goals
Freelancers charge based on your project scope, so be sure to state everything you expect. Don’t understate your requirements with the hope that you can include them later.
In the same way you expect a freelancer to provide everything within the project scope, they won’t provide anything beyond that. Trying to get them to do more work will only cause friction between both parties.
2. Choose a platform to find potential freelance hires
You can find top freelancers on different platforms, but you need to pick the best. For trustworthy candidates, you can visit Upwork, Fiverr, and LinkedIn. However, some of the best freelancers don’t use these sites.
Some freelancers have personal websites where they display their portfolios and state their rates. You might need to dig deep to find these freelancers, but they are worth the time.
You can also find some social media marketing freelancers through their social media channels. This is one of the best options for the role you want to fill, since their channels give you insight into their performance.
3. Go through reviews from past clients
Freelancers always get reviews from past clients. This is how you assess their experience. Through these reviews, you can learn a lot about a freelancer.
When checking the reviews, you must first confirm that they’re from real clients. Some freelancers try to get ahead by posting lots of fake reviews from random accounts.
If you confirm that the reviews are genuine, then check for information on their performance and technical skills. You can also find out if they’re reliable and deliver on clients’ expectations.
4. Assess their service with a paid trial
Sometimes, you need firsthand experience to determine if a freelancer is a good fit. When this becomes necessary, having them work on a paid project is one option. This sample project will give you a chance to assess:
- Delivery speed
- Ability to follow the given guidelines
- Communication skills
- Adherence to deadlines
- Alignment with brand tone and voice
- Promptness
- Technical qualities
5. Find specialized freelancers
Social media marketers fall under the field of digital marketing. So, you can find a digital marketer who knows a little about social media marketing. However, before hiring any freelancer, you must confirm that they specialize in social media marketing.
Specialists always have an edge over generalists, so be careful.
If you really want the best results for your social media marketing campaign, then go for a freelancer who specializes in this field. These freelancers will have connections, access to specialized tools, and the experience to handle anything that comes up later.
How to tell if a freelancer is not a good hire?
Your initial assessment of a social media marketing freelancer might indicate that they’re a good fit for your business. This allows them to get to the interview stage. During the interview, you must check for red flags, such as:
1. Poor social media performance
One of the easiest ways to know if a social media marketer is no good is to check their channels. If they have an Instagram, Facebook, or X page with no engagement or one or two posts in more than a month, then take a step back.
You need a social media marketer to grow your channels. So, if they can’t implement strategies to make their channels stand out, then they don’t have the skills to help you.
2. Promises of results in an extremely short time
Growing your social media channels can be instant, but true growth is organic.
When a freelancer starts to hint at the possibility of your channels seeing a massive growth within a week or two, then they’re doing something underhanded.
Instant social media growth is usually a result of fake followers. You’ll notice this on some accounts with lots of followers with no engagement. Others may have fake followers that engage with their posts, but the comments are usually only smileys.
3. They don’t ask relevant questions
A skilled social media marketer can help you grow your channels only after they confirm your target audience, business goals, available creatives, and competitors.
Anyone that instantly jumps into the role without first learning about your business might bring in followers, but not the ones that suit your brand.
4. Extremely low price
Of course, you hire freelancers to reduce your overhead. However, if the price is suspiciously low, then you should know something is up. Freelancers only charge low prices if their work isn’t up to standard.
You do have some inexperienced freelancers willing to work for a low fee to build their portfolios. So, you’ll need to confirm why they charge so low.
5. General strategies for social media growth
When hiring a freelancer, you must ask them about the strategies they plan to use to grow your channels. If they tell you they have a strategy that works for all types of businesses, that’s a huge red flag.
An expert social media marketer will create a custom strategy tailored to your business needs. These are developed based on your current position, brand goals, and brand tone.
6. No proof of work
For freelancers, a portfolio is what matters. This lets you know who they’ve worked with and if they’re reliable. You can find excellent samples that give you an idea of what to expect, which is great.
So, if a freelancer can’t provide any proof of work, it means they’re just starting out. This isn’t a bad thing, but many freelancers have personal projects they showcase to attract their first client.
Conclusion
In today’s market, building an online presence is crucial for any business. This process requires a dedication to providing high-quality content, interacting with customers, and developing a brand identity.
To achieve these goals, you need to have someone with the knowledge and skills.
Many of the top social media experts prefer to work as freelancers, since this gives them a chance to grow their earnings and build experience. You can hire one of the social media marketing freelancers to handle your social media channels.
Although you get the best services from freelancers, their services are affordable. This makes them a great option when you’re looking to minimize your business expenses.