Here’s what we’ll cover
Ever thought about outsourcing your social media? Want to up the anti on your social media, have an actual strategy, get some real engagement from real clients but you really just don’t have the time? Then you might want to tune into today’s podcast.
I’m talking to Chelsea Berman from Blossom Media about outsourcing your social media marketing. Chelsea lets us when we should be thinking about outsourcing our social media. How do we know when we are ready to outsource? What does it cost? What questions should you be asking any potential experts before you enlist them?
I’ve asked all the questions and Chelsea gives us lots of answers to consider regardless of whether you love (or in my case, dread of) doing all things social media.
Links and Resources
- Checkout the Simply Smarter Numbers website HERE
- Checkout the Podcast HERE
- Checkout the Instagram page HERE
- Checkout the Blossom Media Website HERE
- Checkout the Blossom Media Instagram HERE
Keep Listening!
Here’s the shownotes
Jen Waterson
Today I’m talking to Chelsea Berman from Blossom Media and we’re talking about social media and marketing. And in particular, what we’re going to talk about is outsourcing, as business owners we all want to keep in touch with our social media, we want to keep it up to date, we want people to be engaged, we’re trying to do all the things that we think we should be doing when it comes to social media, but we don’t always have the time. So I thought we’d have a chat about outsourcing. And what we’re talking about is when we should be looking at outsourcing, how we know we’re ready to outsource, what are the questions we should be asking somebody before we hand over our social media to somebody else. We also touch on Facebook ads and we have a really good chat around what it is you should be doing when it comes to outsourcing your socials. So, lets dive in.
Welcome to the podcast Chelsea Berman.
Chelsea Berman
Hello, thank you so much for having me.
Jen Waterson
Very excited to have you here today. I’m going to go and say it straight out Chelsea, I’m feeling super old chatting to you, I actually have a daughter who is your age and while she’s an intelligent and extremely capable young women and I can most definitely see her thriving in her own business one day. But she has taken the traditional university route and you are not, so tell me how is it that an intelligent young women such as yourself, find herself fully booked and running a six figure business, at the age of 21.
Chelsea Berman
Yeah good question. I guess I’ll tell you a bit about my business story and how I came to be a business owner at twenty two, so getting older, but definitely a business owner which is awesome and I’m so grateful for that. Basically it started out at the end of school when I did actually start university in a bachelor or marketing and media, did one semester and just really was not loving it. I was always very academic and I do love learning but just something about that environment and the specific content we were learning was not aligned to what I want to be doing. So I decided to defer and see if I could get a job in marketing to learn more on the job because I’m defiantly one of those people that learn by doing rather than reading a textbook kind of thing.
Jen Waterson
Yeah, and the theory can be kind of awful really. First semester of every university degree is just hideous, but when it’s theory based it’s just so fun when you can actually get out in the real world. So not a bad decision, I’m thinking at this stage but, but anyway keep going.
Chelsea Berman
Yeah I’m definitely thankful that I did make that decision, although at the time it was quite scary and I don’t know if my parents approved 100%, but yeah made that decision and did a few random jobs and had an internship at a marketing company and then I basically got this job agency where I live, so I didn’t have to commute to the city which was amazing. Basically, I worked there for two and a half years, learnt so much about marketing, it wasn’t specifically social media or what I’m doing now but it definitely made me so many skills that I wouldn’t have been able to learn otherwise. Then basically I started doing a bit of free-lance work on the side, I knew that social media is obviously and interest of mine, I grew up with it, its always been a part of my life, so it is something that I really love. I basically started doing free-lance work on the side, working for some friends and got so busy that I decided to quit my marketing job and start doing my business, which again was a scary decision but it has worked out so far, so its been a really awesome journey so far.
Jen Waterson
Yeah, sometimes you’ve just got to make the decision and just step into it and make the most of it, don’t you.
Chelsea Berman
Yeah definitely, and I’m glad now that I did.
Jen Waterson
I suppose working in a marketing agency for a period of time, even though you said it didn’t actually teach you what it is you physically do for your clients today, it gives you a really good feel I think of how businesses work, you know when you can experience it from a strategic experience, what is marketing and why do we do marketing, and yes you get it at a higher level but when you can step into a position and learn from others and then take what it is you can out of that and apply it to your business today and help business owners.
Chelsea Berman
Yeah for sure. Working with so many different clients and agencies definitely help to be able to manage clients and work with different types of people. So yeah, definitely such a valuable opportunity
Jen Waterson
Yeah, and I guess the thing with the world of technology and social media, is that it allows people to step into their own kind of early, without necessarily having to do the full professional university degree. It’s kind of like it gives people like you Chels and lots of others, the perfect in, to your own business, without having to sort of go through the degree. My daughter is doing a dietician degree and she can’t become a dietician without doing this degree. I’m a CPA I’m an accountant, I cant do that unless I’ve done a specific degree. But I get the world of social media and technology, it really does open things up to people who are just not university minded I suppose.
Chelsea Berman
Yeah for sure and I guess I’m really lucky that I did choose marketing as a kind of career path because yeah I don’t think in that specific career, a university degree is necessary, I think you can learn so much on the job and obviously online training, there’s so much amazing training you can invest in and I have invested in, so yeah it definitely obviously university is important for some specific jobs but yeah I think for some things it is great like marketing that you can learn in different ways.
Jen Waterson
Yeah. I guess the thing is too, I’m forty-six and your twenty two, so there’s a big age gap there for us and the thing I guess is when we contrast women such as yourself and women such as me, when you look at that age gap, yes there is an age gap, but there is a significant skills gap as well. I grew up not needing to know that sort of stuff, I didn’t need to know about technology or social media. And there are a lot of people my age that are like totally across it and that’s their thing, that’s their jam, that’s what they’re great at. I am not one of those people, and there’s so many people out there like me I guess. Do you get a lot of clients that are in that sort of older age group, that just don’t want to do it themselves?
Chelsea Berman
Yeah for sure, I think most of my clients are around that age group. They haven’t grown up with social media and with technology like I have so it is a bit harder for them to grasp, and they’re so busy, you know business owners they have so much more to do like running the business and working on the business. So, to have that kind of social media side of things that they might not love or might not be great at, handled for them which is really a lot of help. So I definitely find that I’m working mostly with people in that older age group.
Jen Waterson
Yeah and I guess the other thing is that when I was going in our business when I wanted to implement anything to do with social media, I would always fall back on a younger employee and just say go and take care of the Facebook or go and take care of this and whatever. But that was a few years ago now, and now things have changed, I don’t think these days that I could do that I don’t think I could just rely on any random younger person employee in the business to say okay well can you just handle that because it’s a much more competitive market these days. You really need to be super intentional and purposeful and strategic with your social media, so it’s not just a case of saying okay well I’ll get my daughter to do that who is that age, or you know the young employee who is always on social media to take care of it. It really does require a professional.
Chelsea Berman
Yeah I one hundred percent agree. I actually shared something on my stories the other day saying someone else’s quote saying social media isn’t an interns job, because I think a lot of the time people go the youngest person in the company can handle the social media. I see it a lot happening in kind of restaurants and cafes where obviously, they can’t afford to outsource it all the time so they just get one of the younger staff members to do it. But I think yeah definitely a few years ago that would have worked because you can just post nice pictures and things, things moved along smoothly, but I think now as you said things have to be so much more strategic and purposeful to really stand out and really grow your presence. So yeah I definitely agree with that there’s a lot of training and upskilling that needs to be done for it to be done right.
Jen Waterson
So, Blossom Media, is your business and you do a lot of social media work for business owners, and you also do Facebook ads. So, keeping in mind that’s what you do for other business, is outsourcing a smart move for business owners?
Chelsea Berman
I guess it depends on a few factors, I always say when it is the right time to outsource your social media comes down to a few factors. I think if you don’t actually enjoy doing it, it’s a really good idea to outsource because I know a lot of people just hate social media and don’t enjoy being on it
Jen Waterson
My hand it up.
Chelsea Berman
Yeah you might be one of those people, and that just means it’s going to be one of those tasks in your business that you just dread and you’re not going to do it consistently in a really passionate way. So, that’s a good time to outsource. Another one is obviously if you don’t have the time, you’re a busy business owner, you have so much more to do. So, outsourcing that part of your marketing is a really good idea. The last one would be if you aren’t getting those results that you want or the results that you need to grow on your socials and make sales. So, I usually say either of those three or if it’s all of those three, sometimes it can be all of those people have all three, so it is definitely a good idea to outsource then.
Jen Waterson
So, there’s some reasons why we should look at outsourcing. What about do you see in certain businesses that really get more from it, see more results from it, as in is there a certain size business, do you have to be around for a period or does it not really matter? Does it have to be a growing business do you have to look like some sort of particular business in order to put your hand up and say okay I’m ready to outsource now and get my social medias sorted.
Chelsea Berman
Yeah, no I don’t think there’s a specific size your business has to be. I know people that you know have just started their business and hired someone straight away because they really want to kind of get out of the gate running and get that good social media strategy. And then I know huge businesses that have been doing it just in house or by themselves, and then they really just need to outsource it, get it off their hands. So I don’t think you really have to be a specific type of business or a specific size. But yeah, I think when it does work best, which I talk about this a lot, is when people actually try to create a bit of a personal brand around their socials, so that is whether you’re an ecommerce business or a service provider, it doesn’t really matter, showing your face allowing your audience to know and can trust you and really building a community around that. That is when I definitely see the best results with other people’s social medias and with my clients, so I always recommend trying to yeah create a bit of a personal brand around your socials for sure.
Jen Waterson
Yeah okay. Well how about this one, so the one thing I suspect that will hold people back, I’m thinking there’s probably a couple of things that might hold people back from outsourcing their socials. One of them is probably their marketing budget, would that be correct you know the cost involved?
Chelsea Berman
Yeah definitely.
Jen Waterson
What kind of costs, don’t and I mean and what you say now isn’t necessarily an indication of your pricing but just generally, in the marketplace what do you sort of see is the expected cost, which I shouldn’t say cost I think it’s more of an investment, where you’re investing in something that’s going to help grow our businesses? So, what sort of investment would you typically see out there for say a month by month engagement.?
Chelsea Berman
Yeah, so for social media management, it can really very depending on people’s experience and I guess how big their business is. If your business has a much smaller social media market you can get away with charging less because you don’t have all those expenses and you aren’t trying to really grow your business. But I think it can really be anywhere from you know maybe $600 to $700 a month, up to $2,000 to $3,000 if you are really getting a big agency that charges those higher prices as they need to. So yeah it is quite varied but I think there are so many people that do it and do it in a really good way, so it is quite easy for people who do have a smaller budget to find someone that is in their budget and can really help them as well.
Jen Waterson
I tend to talk a lot about, in particular with service based businesses peoples return on time and looking at how you’re spending your day and time and where it is you can best place your most precious resource which is your time as a service provider. So, if spending all of your time on social media is the best place for you to spend your time then fantastic. However, I suspect it isn’t in the majority of cases so you know when we can sort of appeal away to thing we don’t need to be doing, and that somebody else can do for us and probably do better than we are, then it really does become a growth strategy doesn’t it, like an investment in the growth of your business if you can outsource that stuff.
Chelsea Berman
For sure yeah, and I’ve also kind of found that in my own business because I did hire a VA earlier in the year which has helped so much as you said to help that return on time and for me to really focus on the things that are really going to drive the business forward you know working one on one with clients, social media coaching strategy, all that kind of thing that only I guess I can do in my business. Having someone to handle the other things that I can train them up to do has helped to much and has helped me really be able to grow, so yeah I do see outsourcing as an investment because it’s going to help you really focus on the things that you need to focus on and of course if it’s someone you know that’s a lot more experienced than you, can get you really great results and drive you’re business forward as well .
Jen Waterson
Yeah absolutely. So if we were to consider outsourcing and we were thinking about we’re looking for someone to outsource our social media too, do you have any specific questions that you think we should ask an expert? Is there anything specific we should look for, as somebody who doesn’t anything about outsourcing and how much you should be spending, who are the right people to go to. How do you go about it to start the outsourcing process?
Chelsea Berman
I think it can definitely be tricky finding an outsourcing social media marketer because there’s so many out there you know don’t really know which one is going to be good, which one might be not as good. So there are a few things you can do, obviously I guess quite an easy step is to look at their reviews which they’ll usually have a Facebook page with reviews from clients and that’s a good idea to get a grasp of who they’ve helped before and how they helped them and if that aligns with what you need. Also, you can ask them what social media accounts they are currently working with and go have a bit of a stalk and see what they’re doing there. I always think that definitely getting on the phone and having a chat with them is really important because you really need to make sure that you like their personality and that you guys do gel in that way because you will be working quite close with them and they are going to be really representing your business on social media. So you want to make sure their personality and style really aligns with yours, which I think is quite an important part that some people might miss out on or not really think about as much. I also think obviously their own social media being good is a good thing to look out for, I know some social media marketers they get really busy and they kind of neglect their own social media but personally I think if we are teaching people social media we really have to walk the talk and really show people that we can at least do our own social medias as well as our clients. So I always like to look at that and see kind of what they’re doing in that space.
Jen Waterson
Yeah, that’s a really good tip because I feel as though there are certain businesses that can get away with things, I feel as though a lot of them can get away without having big huge fancy websites and big social media presence and doing all of that sort of stuff. However, if you were a website designer, then you need to have a fantastic website. So I guess that’s sort of picking up on the point that you’re making there is you really need to show your own skills in your own business, don’t you?
Chelsea Berman
Yeah and that’s where you can learn so much as well, doing it for yourself and if you are a social media marketer, using social media to market yourself is such a great thing because you know what you’re doing and you know how to get those results, so you might as well use them on yourself.
Jen Waterson
Yeah I guess so. I guess you could also outsource it yourself you know do the paid work for your clients but actually outsource your own social media presence to somebody else who is you know equally competent and leave you with more time to take care of your clients.
Chelsea Berman
For sure yeah I think if you have a VA or team member that you can really work with to outsource your own socials I think that can be a great idea if you don’t want to you know focus on your own brand and you do have all the clients that you need to focus on, which can be a struggle to do both.
Jen Waterson
Yeah definitely. So I notice you also do Facebook ads which are like a big beast aren’t that. There’s a lot involved in Facebook ads. Once or twice I sat down and sort of tried to tinker with it but I can’t deal with it, but I’m not that way minded to start with. But I looked at your website and you’ve got some really interesting case studies on there about the Facebook ads campaigns that you’ve been running in the past for your clients and there is some amazing results that you can potentially get when running Facebook ads. Do you mind if I just quote a couple of the little things that you had in the case studies on your website, because I find the numbers extraordinary? So you’ve got one example there where somebody had spent say $1,500 and they’re grossing over $37,000 in revenue just from Facebook ads, that’s 25 times the return on ads then which is huge. Another one that got 97 times return on ads spent where they spent $1,300 and they returned $125,000 for a client. These numbers that you put up there, they are screenshots from the actual Facebook ads manager aren’t they, so these are real numbers.
Chelsea Berman
Yeah so I can’t lie about it.
Jen Waterson
No that’s it, these are real numbers, it’s legit and it can actually happen, so Facebook ads are a real way for any business to grow their business and particularly I guess in these times, coronavirus times where everybody is working from home and trying to do things differently. What kind of businesses do you see Chels that really kind of benefit from Facebook ad campaigns? Is there any sort of industry that really benefits more than others?
Chelsea Berman
Yeah, so I have actually moved quite recently into the ecommerce space because I was just finding I was doing a few ads for service providers, mostly for ecommerce and I was just finding the results for ecommerce were just so incredible, I think all of those case studies I have on my website are from ecommerce and I just think obviously selling a service is quit hard to do through a Facebook ad, especially if you’re targeting cold audiences that have never heard of you before, you know why would they then go and spend hundreds or thousands with you to provide a service when they don’t really know that much about you.
I think it can be great for awareness for service providers for sure and creating kind of lead funnels and that kind of thing but yeah ecommerce I think it can be easier in a way because sometimes things are you know impulse buyers, you can see a beautiful photo on a Facebook ad and it speaks to your needs and you can go ahead and buy it straight away.
So I definitely prefer working in that ecommerce space and in terms of I guess the type of people and type of businesses it works best for, I always recommend those businesses that do have kind of warm audiences already warmed up, so that can be they already have a great social media presence and engaged audience there, and there already getting good website traffic through other marketing tools or and they can have a really great email list as well.
So having those warm audience already in place really helps elevate those Facebook ad results and those great results that you see on my website are from people that already have those things in place, so that’s something to keep in mind.
Jen Waterson
Yeah so when it comes to getting to the ultimate point where you can run Facebook ads and make money from it, it takes a little bit of work from the front end you know takes time. What sort of time frames does it take for people to build these lists and build that sort of awareness and engagement, assuming they’re doing a good job of their social medias? Is this like a twelve-month lead time or does it take a couple of years, is it kind of the social media outsourcing that we were talking about previously, is it that kind of what sets them up for these sort of successful Facebook campaigns.
Chelsea Berman
Yeah for sure. So yeah I guess time frame wise it really depends. I think if you’re you know starting out and this is the first time ever being on social media and really warming up those audiences that can take you know quite a few months or even years, I do think you don’t have to have huge audiences to start Facebook ads but you do need something there to really get those results and I think yeah outsourcing kind of really makes that a faster process because obviously you’ll be growing a lot faster, you’ll be getting more engagement and that really helps with obviously building up that warm audience, that you can then use in Facebook ads to retarget and find new audiences. So definitely that outsource is a great thing to do the organic side of things before you invest in the Facebook ads. And that is what I’ve done with a lot of my clients too, they kind of start out with just the organic social media and the social media management, then we build that up and they want to invest in paid ads and Facebook ads, so then we move into the space as well. So, I think doing both of them kind of side by side works really well.
Jen Waterson
It’s really interesting as well when you start talking about Facebooks ads there’s so many different elements to it, is there any benefit for people having played around with Facebook ads manager prior to outsourcing? Is there any real benefit in having some idea before outsourcing there Facebook ads or you know is it safe to just say okay I’m going to hand It over to somebody else?
Chelsea Berman
Yeah I guess that’s a bit of a tricky one. It can work either way. I do have quite a few clients that really just have no idea about Facebook ads so they outsource it and they really don’t have to worry about it or even look at it.
Jen Waterson
They trust you’re doing the right thing.
Chelsea Berman
Yeah they trust. But then I have clients that have tried Facebook ads before and do know their way around the platform and they like to you know look at the ads more and really make sure that I’m doing the right thing but also that they can kind of see the results and interpret the results themselves as well. So, I think it can definitely go either way, it depends I guess how much kind of knowledge and control you want over it, because if you do have some of that education around Facebook ads you can really I guess control your ad manager a bit more, bring more ideas to the table and really know what they’re doing. Whereas if you have no idea about Facebook ads, that would be a bit trickier.
Jen Waterson
I suppose the other thing too with Facebook ads and social media is everything changing all the time and as a business owner, it’s hard enough to keep up with the day to day of running a business, servicing clients and doing all the things that you need to do anyway without trying to keep up with the changes and the different algorithms and things that are happening and the talk about this is working now and this is working now. I guess when it’s outsourced, all of that is taken care of isn’t it.
Chelsea Berman
Yeah exactly. Like I’m in so many different social media Facebook groups and newsletter lists, I obviously need to keep on top of all of that but I think some think that I do and a few other social media marketers do is really I guess not get caught up in that shiny object syndrome, and really make sure before we jump on a new social media trend or change something in our content strategy or work with a new algorithm, to really make sure that that’s actually going to stick around and that the big picture is just bringing the results, so you know we aren’t just jumping on every single new thing because it changes a lot. So, that’s something I like to keep in mind too.
Jen Waterson
Yeah, it’s really interesting and it’s something that I know a lot of business owners are always thinking about you know yes I know I need to do more social media, yes I know I need to increase my presence on social media. But, not a lot of people love doing it. I was actually presenting in a live thing yesterday, I live in Victoria so for the first time in a long time I was able to actually go and stand up in front of a crowd and talk to people, but the thing is I said at one point we were talking about social media and perhaps maybe we should be considering outsourcing various tasks within our business, social media was one of those. I sort of said that’s the one thing I need to take care of that I need to outsource because I don’t love it I’m not that good at it and so on. It was kind of like the room the was split because some people love doing the social media stuff while other people are like me and just don’t want to do it, so I guess that factors into it to a degree like just get it off your desk if it’s not something that you love. If it is something that you love doing just make sure you’re doing it well. What advice would you give somebody who is never going to outsource it and wants to keep doing it, but they’re not a social media person, can you give some advice on how they can learn it, or be more strategic?
Chelsea Berman
Yeah, I definitely think there’s a lot of great pay train that you can do to really keep on top of everything and make sure you are doing that strategically. Of course also there’s so many free resources as well such as following other social media marketers on Instagram and their newsletter lists, they give out so much free value. So that’s a really good thing to make sure you’re on top of just so you know everything that’s going on and how to do your social media the best way possible. I think if you do love it but you do seem like you’re running out of time to do everything, you could work with maybe a social media manager that’s just starting out or more of a virtual assistant kind of role, and you actually do the strategic side of things while they kind of do the engaging or the content or the parts you don’t have time to do, but you still really want to be active on your socials and be a real big part of it. So, there’s definitely ways you can you know outsource parts of it but still have a really big role in it f you do really love it.
Jen Waterson
That’s great, great advice. Well Chels, thank you so much for your advice, it’s been great having a chat to you today. It’s the kind of social media stuff that sends shivers down my spine because I’m not a total lover of it, but I do appreciate it and I appreciate what it can do for business and I appreciate the fact that so many people really do know their stuff when it comes to social media. Thank you so much for joining us, do you have a particular place people can find you, do you have a special downloadable or a website that you’d love people to go visit.
Chelsea Berman
Yeah so my website is BlossomMedia.com.au. On there I have all the information about me as well as my blog and I also do have a free downloadable that is all about creating your social media content strategy, so that might be a good thing for you guys to go and download if you do want some more information about creating really strategic content and growing your socials through your content. Also of course I’m really active on Instagram, so if you want to come and follow me on there, it’s just blossommedia_ so yeah come and say hey.
Jen Waterson
Perfect, so actually something like a content strategy downloadable might be something that’s worth sinking your teeth into as business owner just to say okay I’m going to have a look at this, I’m going to look at this from above and say okay is this something I want to sit down and do or is this something I want to get somebody else to do for me, is it something like you say that I want to do and just get the VA to take care of the engagement side of things. So it might be a really handy place to start as a business owner looking to outsource and make the most of their social media.
Chelsea Berman
Yeah definitely, I think that’s a great idea.
Jen Waterson
Well, thank you so much for joining us, it was so great to have you on the podcast, and wherever you are in the world, I hope you have a wonderful week and we shall talk again soon.
