I hired someone to do the social media for my business. It was more expensive than the business could afford but I was thinking of it as an investment. We’re in month 2 and I’m not seeing any increase in sales. In your experience how effective is social media marketing? And how long does it take to see results if using organic methods (no ads)?
Your organic online presence is CRITICAL to your survival as a business. However, you should NOT expect to see an increase in sales from organic posting you should be measuring traffic to your socials/website and engagement. You are trying to build a presence and a place for people to find you. Getting them to actually buy requires a whole other set of marketing around pricing and product.
You do not need a viral TikTok with 1M+ followers. Identify what social media channels your target audience uses the most to find information. Choose 3 channels to focus on (for example FB, TikTok, Youtube) and set a goal to post 3-5 times a week on each channel for 3 months. It’s not a small commitment but it’s something that you can easily do yourself and you will have some measurable results at the end of the 3 months and can adjust from there. DO NOT OVER THINK IT JUST POST. The posts do not have to be perfect or even good when you start out. Make content that you have the resources to make and that you are happy with in terms of messaging. In general post about what you are doing, why you are doing it, and who is it for.
You are playing the long game and it’s likely you need to put in 6-months of work to start seeing results but it’s what is required to run a successful modern business. Without putting in this work your business’s upside will likely be capped at a certain level.