Do not make the mistake of hiring a low cost digital native, a Millennial right out of school, to do the job. It is incorrect to presume that because they are of the right age that makes them qualified to handle social media. This is wrong on numerous fronts. Social media requires maturity, big picture thinking, an understanding of customer service and brand or company culture which must be in league with the company’s mission and plan. Customer outreach and response to inbound matters can be critical to success. Many times outsourced social media is a result of learning how much time, effort and deployment of personnel is required to successfully accomplish the social media goals.
Add these highly labor-intensive social media areas and the effort grows by orders of multitude: Graphics (Pinterest, Instagram, etc.) Chat (Messenger, Snapchat, WhatsApp, etc.), Video (YouTube, Vimeo, Vine, Periscope, Meerkat, etc.). Maintaining the usual and more commonly known social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) is also a task of note, not a part timer’s soft gig.
If you intend to handle social media internally, consider the staffing, and then budget for work stations and the other necessary and associated
devices. This includes mobile phones and tablets with photo and video capability, perhaps a GoPro or another video and digital capture, stream, save and publish functionality.
We’ve left off Search (Findability is the term we prefer) and advertising. Those areas should be outsourced unless your company or firm happens to have an employee or three (or more) who are so proficient in these areas as to make one wonder why they aren’t consultants or working for an SEO or advertising firm.
Not counting the employees, consultants and outsourced vendors, here’s the shopping list generated by taking into account all of the above:
The initial outlay is just below US$10,000. If some of the equipment is already on hand, the total will come down. Not included are the monthly subscription or connectivity costs associated with the phones, tablets, and Amazon Fire.
The holiday season is right around the corner. Give your business a head start and create your Digital Strategy Lab. Get the New Year –and your business plans and initiatives-- off to a productive start.
Digital Strategy Lab Equipment
Shopping List
Blackberry Classic
Samsung Galaxy Android cell phone S6 799
Samsung Galaxy S2 via eBay
iPhone 6S
iPhone 3GS
Google Nexus
iPad2
iPad Pro
iPad Mini 2
iPad Mini 4
Samsung Galaxy Tab S2
Samsung Note 2
Amazon Fire
MacBook Air
iMac desktop
PC desktop & monitor (Asus)
Old PC on Windows XP + Monitor
Laptop PC (current model i7)