Do You Need A Social Media Manager As A Small Business Owner?

You’re spending borrowed time marketing on your social media platforms. You post consistently, but somehow you’re not getting conversions that meet your business goals. Somewhere in that mix, social media platforms are making daily upgrades and features you’re struggling to keep up with. 

You know investing in digital channels is a smart move, but navigating algorithms and content strategy feels like a full-time job. That’s usually where the big question comes in: Do you actually need a social media manager?

By the end of this article, you’ll have an answer to that question, and you will also know if hiring a social media manager will solve your social media problem as a small business owner.

First, What Does a Social Media Manager Do?

A social media manager runs your day-to-day social presence. This cuts across social strategy development, posting, responding to comments and DMs, analytics and reporting, and pretty much everything else needed to keep your social media pages alive. It’s appropriate to also mention that if you need management that goes beyond this and into running paid ads, influencer marketing, and so on, then that’s the job of a social media marketer. But I digress. 

While some professionals double as both, small businesses often realise they need a combination of both organic management and targeted marketing for proper social media marketing. The key is identifying your specific goals before deciding which expertise your business needs first.

When Do You Need to Hire a Social Media Manager?

Here are 5 common indicators that will let you know when you need to hire a social media manager as a small business owner: 

1. You Don’t Have the Time Social Media Requires  

The marketing terms of social media platforms have shifted from just hitting “post” to managing multiple pages, content formats, platforms, algorithms, and messages. And even if you tried to master the long route from post to profit, it feels like you’re being pulled away from other aspects of your business that require at least 80 hours per week.

Yet, to get your business content out of being just another needle in the haystack of social media, spending time to understand how it works is a necessary evil.  

Investing in a social media manager will, however, save you time.  A social media manager is conversant with the nitty-gritty of social media platforms and how to keep pace with their dynamics to eventually drive revenue. 

2. You’re Stuck on Choosing the Right Social Media Platform and Content Format.

You know you’re supposed to be on social media. But what paralyses you is choosing the right platform to market on. Should you bother with LinkedIn? Do you need to be on X and Instagram, or skip one? Is TikTok the right option for your kind of business?   

Answering this question requires more than a gut feeling. You also can’t be everywhere at once, because spending hours chasing every social platform without proper audience research burns time with little payoff. 

And because you don’t know the right platform to reach your audience, you end up creating the wrong content format and posting it on the wrong platform. 

Tackling this problem is where a social media manager’s value lies. They make sure every social platform you use has a defined job. Hiring an expert social media manager means positioning your business on the platforms your audience uses, understanding the platform, and creating the right content that speaks with them. 

3. You Post Consistently, But Don’t Get Results

Another clear sign that you need a social media manager is when your social media account isn’t quiet, but engagement is low, and your content doesn’t translate into buying customers.  

Consistency is the first piece of advice anyone would give you to grow your social media presence. But what gets left out is that consistency without a strategic content formula is just filling social feeds. 

The problem lies in treating social media pages as a sideline rather than as a planned marketing tool. Copying competitors and hoping on the next trend is a fast way to post, but an expert social media manager knows the difference between mere content and content that can generate revenue. They understand how to structure content from business goals to marketing goals to achieve results. 

Note: A social media manager is not a salesperson. However, how they build brand awareness and enhance community trust, alongside their overall strategy, lays the foundation for generating sales. So if the right strategy isn’t in place, there won’t be any sales. 

4. You Can’t Keep Up With The Algorithms

The algorithms are wavy on paper and in reality. From SEO best practices to trends to the platform features themselves, everything feels demanding.

You’re already stretching yourself thin to produce great content, but the algorithm seems to be against you. The tactics you mastered a month ago are suddenly outdated, and you’re not sure if it’s your content or just bad timing. 

Besides, if you can’t keep up with the algorithms, you can’t create a plan that moves your post from random to strategic. The algorithms will always change, and as a business owner, squeezing in social media between everything else to stay ahead is not realistic.  

A social media manager absorbs the ever-changing mechanics for you and creates an up-to-date marketing playbook that suits your business. 

5. You’re Not Sure if Your Social Media Marketing  is Working

Your post gets people talking, attracts profile visits, and even gets shared. But when you ask yourself, “How is any of this helping my business?”, you don’t have a concrete answer. This is a clear sign that you need a social media manager quickly,  because in social media marketing, uncertainty is worse than bad results. 

Follower counts and likes matter, but if they’re not aligned with what your business wants to achieve eventually, then they don’t mean anything.

This problem also has an element of time because knowing how to track real metrics and turn them into a business decision is a time-demanding skill in its own right. And without the translation of data, you’re stuck on guesswork. 

A social media manager who also offers social media marketing services closes that gap. They set up the tracking, know which numbers actually predict business impact, and can tell you in plain terms whether your marketing is working or just keeping you busy. The benefits of hiring a social media manager cut across your entire business since digital channels now directly feed your revenue. 

4 Benefits of Hiring a Social Media Manager

1. Consistent Brand Presence: A social media manager works from a scheduled weekly or monthly content calendar, aligning with your brand identity across all your active platforms. This means your content is ready long before it’s time to post. So even when you’re having a chaotic day, appealing content that builds trust and brand authority goes up for your audience. 
2. Platform Expertise and Mechanics: A good social media manager doesn’t use social platforms based on personal preferences or mood. They conduct audience research across platforms and choose the right one for you. They understand platform psychology and know why content performs differently on TikTok vs X, rather than pasting the same post everywhere. 
3. Data-driven Growth: A social media manager has the right balance of flexible and structured content. Additionally, they study your page analytics, identify the content format that works for you, and draw back on the ones with less to give. 
4. Audience Engagement: Audience engagement is more than replying to comments fast. It’s building a community around your brand. It’s everything that builds enough trust to turn a passerby into a follower, and a follower into a loyal customer, and that should be the tantalising part for your business. Hiring the right social media manager hands you that feeling. 

What Does it Cost to Hire A Social Media Manager?

Rates vary by scope, the number of platforms, years of experience, and the exact social media management services you want. However, according to Glassdoor’s recent salary survey, an in-house social media manager costs an average of £36,000 annually or £17 per hour, while Wise estimates £500 to £5,000 monthly for social media management agencies, depending on the agency’s size and expertise. 

However, the rate hardly matters if what you’re getting back doesn’t add up.  It’s surprisingly easy to pay £3,000 in two months and still get below-par results if you don’t ask the right questions up front to ensure you are choosing the right social media manager for your business. 

Before you hire a social media manager or marketer, here are 4 questions you should ask them: 

• How do they align content with business outcomes, not just engagement?
• How would they measure whether social media is working for you?
• What does the process of auditing a social media page look like?
• How, and how often, do they report on analytics?

Should You Hire a Full-Time Manager Or Work With An Agency? 

A full-time, in-house social media manager comes with commitments, salary and benefits, which can be expensive for your business. You’d also be hiring a generalist to do every aspect of social media marketing services all at once. While this might appear cost-effective at first, beyond the surface, it is actually costing your business more.  

A social media management agency is your best bet when you need a hands-on team with various expertise. You’re hiring a strategist, content creator, analyst, copywriter, ad manager, and designers, often as a package, plus a community manager. If you hire the right marketing agency, you can easily scale up the services you need and avoid looking for new hires as your business expands.  

So, What’s Next?

You now know hiring a social media manager can solve all your social media problems. But what you must also know is that hiring the right agency is what can make or mar that decision. 

Whether it is day-to-day social media management, content creation, content calendar management, DM management, community management or even paid social advertisements, the expert social media managers and marketers at Labile are always happy to help. 

Book a free consultation with us and let’s help you achieve the social media visibility, engagement, and sales growth your small business needs.