Hire a Social Media Manager

These days, it’s hard to thrive as a business without a strong social media presence, especially when considering that there are 1.5 billion social media users. But many of us don’t exactly know what that means, much less how to achieve it.

Luckily, there are freelance digital marketers who can take care of everything from email marketing campaigns to Google ads and yes, social media, too.

If you’re considering bringing a professional on to take over your social media marketing, take a minute to check out my top picks for where to hire a social media manager.

Read our guide on the best freelance websites for marketing to find and hire talent to grow your business.

Best Websites to Hire a Social Media Manager

1. Mayple

Best for the top digital marketing experts

Mayple is a freelance website that helps connect talented digital marketers with businesses that are looking to grow rapidly.

What makes this site different from others in this list (like Upwork and Fiverr) is that Mayple vets all signups and provides businesses (prospective clients) with ratings of their skillsets. They do this by vetting their social media managers based on a data-driven scoring system.

Mayple is dedicated to providing businesses with the best possible social media manager for their unique business needs. That’s why they learn about your business’s goals; whether that be to grow your follower count, make new connections, or ensure you’re reaching your target audience; before planning a tailored-made social media strategy to reach those goals.

They also provide an onboarding questionnaire to help connect businesses with the right social media manager for them.

Many of the social media managers that you can find on Mayple have worked for the world’s leading companies.

• Read our Mayple review

2. GrowTal

Runner up for finding and hiring top marketing experts

When you’re looking to hire a social media manager, you’re looking for someone who is not only qualified and capable but someone who can really feel like a part of the team; someone who understands and can replicate the voice and vibe of your company. GrowTal is a company that gets it.

Their approach begins with meeting with you directly (well, via Zoom) and getting a feel for what kind of social media manager your company needs.

From there, they contact a few of their extensive list of quality social media management specialists that they think would be a good fit for your company and its goals. They present you with three to five social media managers within two business days and you can then interview and eventually hire one of them.

This company is a good choice if you don’t have the time or knowledge to search through the pages of social media managers on other sites, but need to promote your social media presence ASAP.

• Read our GrowTal review

3. MarketerHire

MarketerHire makes it easy to hire the right social media manager.

The talent team behind MarketerHire is constantly finding and recruiting the best social media managers to freelance on their platform. They have fantastic experience, proven expertise, and excellent communication, which is essential when it comes to social media.

MarketerHire will hand-match you to a social media expert that fits your project and budget within 48 hours and most of their client projects are kicked off within a week. Their pricing is very straightforward and they don't lock you into a long-term contract, which is good if you’re new to hiring a social media manager.

The big advantage to using MarketerHire over other freelancing websites is their talent team that is dedicated to finding and recruiting the best marketers to freelance on their platform. They have a rigorous freelancer screening process and accept less than 5% of the marketers that apply for their platform, meaning the social media managers they have are respected experts in their field.

• Read our MarketerHire review

4. Upwork

Best overall freelance website for finding marketing talent

Upwork, formerly known as Odesk, is one of the most popular freelancing sites for social media managers.

Upwork lets you view each candidate’s profile and rates, which makes checking each social media managers’ qualifications much more efficient. You have the power to reach out to a freelancer of your choice, and communicating over the browser and mobile app is intuitive.

You start by posting a job with all of your desired specifications in the description, like “social media manager needed for a short-term contract”. Upwork then sorts through their thousands of social media managers to select the right fit, providing you with a shortlist of Upwork’s best candidates for you to choose from. These freelancers will also have an opportunity to apply to your job posting directly.

Social media managers can either be paid by the hour or per project, whichever works best for you.

• Read our Upwork Review

5. Fiverr

Fiverr is one of the largest freelancing job boards on the web, making it a great option to search through a wide variety of social media specialists. Clients look through the site’s list of social media specialists by using its robust filter tools to find the right fit. Companies can filter freelancers based on their price range, body of work, and much more.

You contact a social media manager by selecting their profile and reaching out to the freelancer directly. Discuss rates and goals and create a contract that you both agree on, then work with them to create and implement your social media marketing strategy.

Fiverr is great for finding marketers with a specific skill set like a social media manager as the site has categories for each type of digital marketer.

• Read our Fiverr review

What is a social media manager?

A social media manager is someone who manages the online presence of a company. They create a brand’s online voice, so they must have a good understanding of what the company wants to sound and look like.

They are responsible for creating strategies that utilize knowledge of each site’s algorithms to maximize exposure and interactions.

What does a social media manager do?

A social media manager creates advertising campaigns and messaging specific to each social media platform.

They run daily operations across the company’s social media sites. This includes things like posting to a company’s Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, and Twitter profiles.

A social media manager could also be in charge of things like blogging and responding to followers.

How much does it cost to hire a social media manager?

Some Social Media Managers have an hourly rate while others do a per-project rate. Remember that all of their rates depend on their level of experience, the scope of the project, whether you just want them to take care of one social media platform or multiple, etc.

The hourly rate for a social media manager on most popular sites ranges from $15-$150 an hour with an average of $50 per hour (this number was generated based on data scraping popular social media manager profiles across multiple platforms and locations).

If you are hiring a full-time social media manager, expect to pay an average annual salary of $50,000.

How to hire a social media manager

Here’s a good step-by-step process that’s useful in hiring a social media manager:

1. Identify your needs – What do you need your social media manager to do? Create blog posts, manage multiple accounts across social media platforms? Do you need more engagement on your posts?
2. Create goals – Set quantifiable goals that you want to reach within a certain timeframe. Do you want 100 new followers a month? Do you want 10 successful blog posts per month? What does success look like?
3. Define your budget – Analyze what your finances can handle and have an exact amount allotted to pay your social media manager (use these prices listed as guidelines).
4. Explore best websites for social media managers – Look around at sites like Upwork, Fiverr, and others on this list to find the best social media manager for your company.
5. Create test or pilot projects to see if they’re a good fit for your culture – Create a sort of audition for your social media manager before hiring- have them create an Instagram post or have them pitch your company to you as if you were a customer.

Also, consider if their previous clients are similar to your own business. A large corporation’s social media presence is going to look a lot different from a small family-owned restaurant, so you want someone whose experience aligns with your vision.