Yo, so here's the deal. I've now had more than enough clients ask this over the last 3-5 years, and have now put more data analysis into answering these types of questions, and thus feel more confident than ever in saying that yes, even small businesses need to invest in a FULL TIME social media person, that doesn't just make posts, but also facilities conversations with target customers online and manages "community."

Let's get specific.

1. How many hours per week need to be spent on Social Media Brand / Community Management?

Our answer: 40 hours per week (1 FTE solely responsible for it)

2. Within that, how should this person break down their time?

Our answer:

7-8 a.m. daily = Strategically posting on Insta, LinkedIn, Facebook, Medium.

8-9 a.m. daily = following hashtags on Instagram and making intelligent comments on at least 15 posts.

Adding Value to Other People's Instagram Posts in the Form of Intelligent Comments = 5 hours per week.

9 a.m. - 10 a.m. daily = search.twitter.com for hashtags and phrases relevant to your brand and target audience. Join in the conversation. Say hello, ask questions, answer questions. Add value.

Joining the Conversation on Twitter = 5 hours per week.

10 a.m. - 2 p.m. = Create and Curate Your Own Content. Video and Photo Content. Create infographics, Memes, Pull Quotes, Blogs, Customer Testimonials, Customer Stories, Industry Blogs/Whitepapers.

This time should be used to create all of your actual content that you'll be posting on behalf of your brand.

Content Creation = 20 hours per week.

2 p.m. - 3 p.m. = Strategically posting on Insta, LinkedIn, Facebook, Medium.

Native Content Posting = 10 hours per week.

3 p.m. - 5 p.m. = Strategically scheduling remaining posts on Facebook (native), LinkedIn/Insta via Buffer or Ripl.

"Filling in the gaps" via scheduling posts = 10 hours per week.

Each of these functions have a purpose, working together in the name of targeted follower growth, making the right kinds of audience connections, brand associations, potential partnerships and ultimately building brand loyalty and funneling the right kinds of business and customers your way.

This person is working ~50 hours per week on social content, occasionally stopping for nutrition, hydration, and bathroom breaks 🙂

This person is fed raw content / sometimes edited content by other teammates.

Marketing Director / Business Owner / third party is the "analyst" looking at analytics around which posts are working best, and how growth is going.

Thanks for reading, and have a great day!

Paul Hickey, Founder / CEO / Lead Strategist at Data Driven Design, LLC has created and grown businesses via digital strategy and internet marketing for more than 10 years. His sweet spot is using analytics to design and build websites and grow the audience and revenue of businesses via SEO/Blogging, Google Adwords, Bing Ads, Facebook and Instagram Ads, Social Media Content Marketing and Email Marketing. The part that he’s most passionate about is quantifying next marketing actions based on real data.