The hidden cost of headcount
When you hire, you pay for more than just the salary. You have to account for recruiting, onboarding, benefits, and management time. For a founder, the biggest cost is the opportunity cost. That person needs time to learn your brand voice and your course material. They will need to manage the creative process, the posting schedule, and the community. It is a slow, methodical way to grow. You are effectively paying to build an internal service department that will eventually need to grow as your demands increase.
The limitations of a single manager
A single person can only do so much. They are limited by the organic reach of your main brand account. Even the best social media manager cannot force a post to go viral. You are paying for their time, but their output is still constrained by the platform's limits. If you want more reach, you have to hire more people or spend more on ads. It is a linear growth model that rarely offers the kind of scale you need to significantly move the needle for a profitable business.
Alternatives to hiring
Instead of hiring, you could use a managed content network. A managed content network is a set of many brand-owned Instagram pages that post your existing videos many times a day from real iPhones, built and run end to end by a provider such as TIDE. This replaces the need for a full-time hire for social media distribution. You pay for the reach and the automation, not for someone to sit and post content manually all day. It is a way to scale without adding to your permanent payroll.
Evaluating your growth strategy
Do you need a person, or do you need a result? If you need someone to help with strategy, brand culture, or community building, a social media manager is the right choice. But if you just need more people to see your course videos and click the sign-up link, hiring might be the most expensive way to get there. Consider whether an automated distribution system could deliver the same result for a fraction of the cost and management headache of a new employee.
Hiring a social media manager is a costly, linear growth path, whereas automated distribution systems offer a scalable way to increase reach.
See your network before you hire.
Tell us what your online course business already makes and how you get customers today. We'll show you a real network running live and tell you honestly whether it fits. It costs about the same as one marketing hire.
Follow-up questions
What is the best alternative to hiring?
Outsourcing the distribution to a managed content network allows you to scale reach without the complexity of managing a new employee.
Can I start with a freelancer?
Yes, but they bring the same limitations as a full-time hire. You are still limited by the reach of your single brand account.
How do I measure the ROI of a hire?
Track the increase in organic leads and the brand engagement metrics. If the return on that investment is lower than your paid ads, reconsider.