Should I Get a Social Media Manager or Do It Myself?

You've had this argument with yourself before, probably on a Sunday night or at 9 pm after the day's work is finally done.

You open Instagram to post something, stare at the blank caption box, and start doing the math in your head. What would it be worth to NOT have to post yourself? What else could that money do for my business? Then you close the app and go to bed with nothing posted (again).

This argument never ends because you're comparing a real number to a fake one. Hiring someone costs $600 or $2,000 a month and doing it yourself seems free. But it's not free (you just pay for it in ways that never show up on your bank statement).

So, what does doing it yourself actually cost?

Most small business owners spend somewhere between 3 and 10 hours a week on social media. That's 12 to 40 hours a month, which is basically a part-time job you aren't getting extra compensation for.

Now put a number on your time. If your time is worth $50 an hour and you spend five hours a week on social media, you're spending about $1,000 a month on it.

For comparison, social media management with a strategy included starts around $600 a month for most small businesses. So for a lot of people, the DIY version is actually the expensive one.

Even I struggle with this (and I do it for a living).

I still do The Brand Barn's social media myself, and people tell me all the time, "Wow, you're so consistent!" What they don't see is that it's always on my plate. Even when I'm not posting, I'm thinking about what I should post, whether anyone commented, and when I need to check on it again.

When a busy week hits and I step away from it, getting back on is tso hard. When you're in it, you're moving and grooving, but, when you stop, you don't want to open the app (because opening it means managing it all over again).

That's the most common pattern I see with DIY social media. You post hard for three weeks, life gets busy, the page goes quiet, and now there's guilt attached to it, so the gap just keeps getting longer.

There's another hidden cost nobody talks about.

It takes about 23 minutes to fully refocus after you switch tasks (that's from research out of UC Irvine). So every time you stop your actual work to make a post, you pay for the post AND the 23 minutes it takes to get your head back in the game.

Which means your four hours a week of social media were never really four hours.

DIY social usually appears one of two ways

When business owners come to me after doing it themselves, their page either looks thrown together between client meetings and sending invoices, or there's nothing there at all.

Neither one comes from a lack of effort. The thrown-together page usually has a TON of overthinking behind it, even if it doesn't show. And the empty page is usually a perfectionism thing, because if it can't be done right, it doesn't get done at all.

You ARE losing customers, they are just invisible.

If most of your customers come from referrals, you might think social media doesn't matter much for you. But referrals still look you up. Someone hears your name from a friend, pulls you up on their phone, and decides how they feel about you before they ever call.

The worst part is that you don't get a notification when someone looks at your page and leaves. Some lost customers are visible, but a lot of them are invisible. They looked, they had a thought, and they moved on.

Before anyone reads a single word you wrote, your brand is already talking for you. They see your colors, your fonts, your logo, and how put together everything looks, and that first impression is what they walk away with. That's why I ALWAYS start with clarity (and not with "let's just get a page up").

You might be better off doing it yourself.

If you're just starting out, I think you should DIY your social for a while. That stage where your hands are in everything is such a sweet part of the journey, and you learn so much about your business and your people from it.

The same goes if you genuinely love making content. If you have stong opinions about your own captions and it's a part of the business you'd miss, keep it.

But when it starts costing you, it's time to hand it off.

It's time when your page has gone quiet long enough that people might assume your business has too. It's also time when you spend 45 minutes scrolling for "inspo" every time you need to post (that means you need someone doing the deciding before the posting happens). And if you ran the math above and your DIY number is bigger than the quote, you're already paying more to keep doing something you don't enjoy.

When you work with me, you get clarity first, so your brand, website, and social are all saying the same thing and working together. Social media management starts at $600 a month, and the strategy is included.

The best part isn't really the time you get back.

Steve at This Guy's BBQ called our work together "beyond what I thought I could have for my small business." When my clients talk about what changed, it's usually less about the hours and more about the headspace they get from it.

They aren't lying in bed wondering what do I post tomorrow? or checking their phone to see if anyone commented. It's handled. They can hop on and engage whenever they want to, but they don't have to, so they get to focus on what they do best.

If you're stuck in the should or shouldn't loop, let's talk it through. Tell me where you are, and I'll tell you whether it's time to hand it off or keep going on your own for now.

Start your inquiry →