Social media can be a really powerful way to connect with and build deeper relationships with your audience – but it can be extremely time consuming. So, we asked some folks we admire to share how they manage their social profiles and whether they’ve hired professionals to help.

John Grenn

I have mostly done my own, learning the hard way at times but I found that there are just too many agencies that charge a lot without any guarantee of results. Read more>>

Marsha Evariste

I manage all @dolledbydior.co social media. I haven’t hired someone or a team/company to manage it. It allows me to have full control of my business. I only put out content and product(s) that I 100% approve on. I love the results I have gotten. I have had the help of my ambassadors to help me promote my brand and I highly recommend business owners doing the same. Read more>>

Madeline Buechter

I run my own social media. I have a background in social media & photography, so it just made the most sense. The further I get in this industry, the more people I met, the more I realize how many people outsource this part of their business. I’ve been approached numerous times from companies or individuals to come in and help with this side of it, but it’s just never something I would want to be off site. When I was a young server, I helped run some social media’s for two different food industry businesses. If I wasn’t working on site that day, I never felt like I was able to get the content needed. It’s a very in person job, which is why outsourcing has never made sense to me. I take pride in producing informative and pretty information via social media. I don’t tend to follow trends that I see on instagram or tiktok because it feels inauthentic to me. It just becomes noise to me when I’m scrolling my personal social medias, and I don’t want to contribute to the noise. Make it true, make it look enticing/delicious, and don’t make it look different than it will look at the table. A gorgeous cocktail/food photo is alluring, but if it doesn’t come out to the customer looking like that, it’s false advertising. Just be real. Read more>>

Totiana White

Being a business owner we are consistently figuring out ways to make our lives easier. Social media has been a great tool for me and as of right now I am in full control of my business account. What content is being posted and who I allow within my social media space. But I do plan to have my personal assistant/manager of the business eventually take over some aspects of my social media, so I can focus on other parts of the business and expand in different areas. When operating any business, the lessons I can share is have a passion for it. There will be challenging days and there will be achievement days but the goal is to not give up. So choose a field that you’re willing to sacrifice your energy, money and time into daily. If you plan on being a sole proprietor, it’s best to have all your financials in place or an adviser that can assist you. Take any courses relevant to your business so you can be the expert. No matter if you have a team or you’re doing it on your own, make sure you look into all the resources you have around you and at your finger tips. You will need all the positive assistance you can get. Read more>>

Alex Choonoo

I manage the social media account for my sketch team ‘Probably A Cult’ along with the founder, Ben. We debated hiring a social media manager, but we made the choice to do it ourselves to push ourselves to create new content more often. The results have been great! We’ve created an outlet to exercise our sketch comedy muscles, and we’ve grown our community. We started by committing to a simple goal, spend two hours per week creating one post for social media. A proverb that has rang true during this commitment is “content is king.” Two hours isn’t enough time to produce the highest quality of content, so when we post something that gains traction, we know it isn’t because of the production value. That truth has pushed me into the “quantity” direction for the age old “quantity vs quality” argument. Social media is essentially a free marketing tool that is at your disposal, and the lesson I learned from using it as such is the more often you post, the more often you are seen, and that’s ultimately a positive thing. If people aren’t interested in your post, the penalty is less engagement. I’ve seen several collogues hesitate to build their social media because they can’t afford a team and they are not confident in their abilities, but I believe it is a low-risk, high reward scenario, so I say go for it! Read more>>

Bianca Figueiredo

I like to have control over what content I create and having more direct connection with the individuals in my community. I feel that doing this myself, allows me to have more creative freedom, and for it to be more authentic. I specifically make content to help others embrace and love their natural hair. I also help make content for brands to use for their own marketing purposes. Read more>>

Theresa Jim

Currently I manage my own social media as I want to teach myself and learn how to market my own business. I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Business Marketing and I have always enjoyed being creative while promoting my true self to attract the right clients. If other photographers are interested in pursing this as a career, don’t be afraid to ask questions! If managing your own social media is too much and you don’t enjoy it, outsource for help. Don’t let something small deviate from your passion and success. Read more>>

Anne Boninsegna Jen Lindsey

We found that having an in-house social media manager is the best fit for our business. This approach allows us to capture the dynamic nature of our daily operations, events, and atmosphere in real time. When we outsourced social media and general marketing management in the past, we noticed a disconnect between what was being posted and what was actually happening in our space, which impacted authenticity. Having someone on-site ensures that our story is being told accurately and efficiently. Plus, it saves time, as there’s no need to constantly relay information to a third party—our manager is already in our team meetings and immersed in our daily flow. Read more>>

Bryce Blagrove

I currently manage my own social media solely because I am very particular about how I want things to look and explaining that to someone else would be very difficult for me , so I would rather do it myself. The results have been great so far I have not had any issues or complaints ! I would say definitely take your time with what you would like to do and don’t compare your journey to someone else’s as well. When I first started out I used to do that a lot but now I’m in my own lane and pace and enjoying every bit of what’s coming with this business journey. Read more>>

Serra Naiman

I manage my own! The whole social media thing was more or less an accident. When I started acting for film again in 2020, I had a casting director tell me that I was “not going to get cast in anything if [I] don’t have a social media following.” That was the last thing I wanted to hear. I was barely on social media at all; I had disabled my Facebook years ago, I had a tiny private instagram, and I had never even been on TikTok. So I begrudgingly opened a “professional” Instagram and I did not take it seriously at all – I just messed around and posted stuff that made me chuckle. But over time I slowly realized that it was a really useful way to showcase my comedy writing. After the pandemic hit and I left Chicago, I was missing live sketch and improv so much – social media turned out to be a way to scratch that itch. Read more>>