Social Media Marketing Cost

You can plan and implement a social media marketing campaign for free. It doesn’t cost anything to open accounts and post on social media, and the tools you need for collecting and analyzing data are either available for free or have some kind of free trial period. However, it can be worth your while to pay for some tools because the pro versions are so much more powerful than the free ones. Here is a discussion of what tools Social Media Marketers use, what they do, and what they cost.

What is Social Media Marketing?

Social media marketing uses platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and TikTok to connect with a target audience. According to Hootsuite’s Digital 2021 report, more than 4.48 billion people use these platforms daily, making social media marketing a smart choice to help drive website traffic, build a widely-known brand, and gain revenue.

There are two types of social media marketing: paid and unpaid. Paid marketing means buying ads on different social media sites, while unpaid marketing relies on high-quality content, clicks, likes, and shares. It’s also called “earned marketing.” While earned marketing is valuable because it doesn’t cost any money, it can take a long time to see results, so Social Media Marketers need to be patient and persistent.

A social media marketing campaign is based on these five essential activities:

• Strategy–setting goals, choosing the best channels, and deciding what type of content will attract your audience.
• Planning and publishing–understanding your audience, knowing what and when to publish, and maintaining consistency.
• Listening and engagement–interacting with your audience and tracking changes in the market.
• Analytics–collecting, tracking, and analyzing data on social media accounts so you can figure out what is working for you.
• Advertising–earned and paid advertising.

Read more about what social media marketing is and why you should learn it.

What Can You Do with Social Media Marketing?

Social media marketing is a powerful way to get the word out about your product or message, and one of the best things is you can do it for free. It doesn’t cost anything to open accounts on the different social media platforms, and many of the digital marketing tools you need are free to use or have a free version.

Data analytics tools allow you to research the market, identify a target audience, and tailor your message directly to them. Engagement tools let you interact with potential customers, get important feedback, see what your competitors are doing, and change your campaign as you need to. Social media marketing creates and maintains a community through regularly posted, high-quality content.

It can take a bit of time to see organic results, but you can use paid advertising to speed things up. Advertising increases engagement and is a good investment. Social media marketing tools allow you to pinpoint your audience and advertise just to them.

In-Depth Review of the Cost

Social media marketing depends on data to identify a target audience, determine what content is likely to be most effective, when to publish content or interact with followers, and track what the users do. This is accomplished with social media marketing tools. The most widely used tools come from Google, and they are available for free. There are others like SEMRush and Moz that are specific to SEO and Hootsuite for social media and content marketing that offer professional versions, but you can get started for free.

Google

Search engine giant Google provides many tools for Social Media Marketers to use, many of which are free. Go to Google’s website to get started.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics (GA) is the most widely used analytics program on the internet. You can use GA to track website visitors, collect data on what they do there, and get numerous reports on users and their actions. GA identifies problems with your web pages to improve performance and sales. Google Analytics can be complicated to learn, but it is free to use.

Google Ads

Google Ads is a paid online advertising platform that allows you to purchase targeted ads on Google’s search pages. These are Pay Per Click (PPC) ads, where a business sets a limit on how much they want to spend, and Google charges a small fee every time someone clicks on the ad. People focus more on attracting organic search activity because they don’t have to pay for it, but PPC is the fastest way to see digital marketing results. Google Ads is free to use, but you have to open an account and pay for the ads.

Google Data Studio

Google Data Studio allows you to take the data from other Google tools and turn it into reports and data visualizations to help plan digital marketing strategies.

Google Business Profile

Google Business Profile is connected to Google Maps, a tool that provides street view photos and directions. Business owners can provide information on brick-and-mortar locations as well as create a free website. Your business will come up in searches for the business name or description. Google Business Profile is free.

SEO Tools

SEMRush

SEMRush is a powerful SEO tool to help you with content marketing, market research, advertising, and social media marketing. Digital marketing depends upon driving organic traffic to your website, and SEO helps you do that. SEMRush offers a seven-day free trial, and after that, there are three levels: Pro for $119.95 monthly, Guru at $229.95 monthly, and Business for $449.95 monthly.

Moz

Moz is another SEO tool that does similar functions. Moz offers a less powerful free version and a pro version. After a 30-day free trial, you can purchase Moz at four different levels: Standard for $99/month, Medium for $179/month, Large for $299/month, and Premium for $599/month. There is a 20 percent discount if you pay for a year upfront.

Social Media Tools

HootSuite

HootSuite helps you plan content and schedule posts on social media. You can monitor and manage comments and messages, promote organic content, manage paid ads, and collect data across all of your social media channels. After a 30-day free trial, HootSuite costs $49 monthly for the Professional level, $129 monthly for the Team package, and $739 per month for a Business account.

Platform-Specific Tools

Each social media platform has its own analytics tools. Twitter and TikTok each offer free analytics tools. Meta Analytics covers Facebook and Instagram, and YouTube data can be collected through Google Analytics. It is free to open accounts and post on social media, but you can also buy ads on all of the platforms.

You can find many free video tutorials on the Noble Desktop YouTube channel to help you learn to use social media marketing tools. Videos like Intro to Social Media Marketing, Intro to Google Analytics, and Intro to Facebook Marketing can help you get on top of the tools that social media marketing depends upon.

Why Learn Social Media Marketing?

Social media marketing has become a popular career as businesses have moved online. In order to become a successful Social Media Marketer, you need to understand how the different social media platforms operate and what their focuses are. You need to have skills like clear communication, organization, flexibility, writing, creativity, and data analytics. You also need to know how to build a brand and use quality content to increase sales.

Read more about why you should learn Social Media Marketing.

Free Introductory Social Media Marketing Course Online

Free courses can give you a brief introduction to some aspects of social media marketing. This can help you decide if you want to pursue the field further. If you are not ready to commit to the time and expense involved with a bootcamp or certificate course, you can find free introductory video courses and tutorials. Noble Desktop offers Intro to Social Media Marketing, a seminar that introduces students to social media marketing and how to successfully leverage it to increase the reach of their brand. The tutorial emphasizes the importance of choosing the right social media channels for the right message and cultivating an authentic brand voice. Students learn to research what works and what doesn't for their brand, then discover what makes for good storytelling in a social media context. By the end of the tutorial, students will have a firm understanding of social media marketing and how to create an action plan to generate organic brand engagement.

Some other free online introductory courses and tutorials include What is Social? from Coursera, WordStream Learn’s PPC University, Social Media Quickstarter from Constant Contact, and Google Analytics Academy, a series of free classes about Google’s measurement tools.

There are many options for free social media marketing tutorials on YouTube. Simplilearn offers a six-hour Social Media Marketing Full Course tutorial for beginners. Neil Patel has several free tutorials on learning social media marketing and other digital marketing topics. Other YouTubers offering free online tutorials include Maggie Stara, Jordan Platten, Dan Lok, and Santrel Media.

Learn Social Media Marketing with Hands-on Training at Noble Desktop

Noble Desktop’s social media marketing courses teach skills that can help you start a career in the industry. Classes are small, with expert instructors, and you can retake a course for free up to a year after you take it. Those ready to dive into the field can attend in-person classes at Noble Desktop’s New York City location or attend live online social media courses from anywhere in the world.

In Noble Desktop’s Social Media Marketing Certificate, you can master successful social media marketing tools and techniques. You will learn about strategy development, content creation, brand building, analytics, and conversion optimization.

Noble Desktop also offers more detailed courses for those looking to hone their skills on specific channels, such as Facebook Marketing, email marketing, Social Media Content Marketing: Blogs & Twitter, and Video Marketing: TikTok & YouTube, or go for a Social Media Marketing Certificate. Other Noble Desktop resources that can help prepare for a career in digital marketing include its digital marketing blog, which has detailed articles about social media marketing, SEO, and other essential tools for digital marketers. Further resources include Noble’s seminar on YouTube entitled The Pillars of Digital Marketing Success.

Key Insights

• You don’t have to spend a lot of money to start a social media marketing campaign.
• Many of the tools that drive social media marketing can be used for free or have a free trial period.
• There are also a number of free classes to get you started in social media marketing.
• You can receive comprehensive social media marketing training through an in-person or live online course with Noble Desktop.