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.

Lil Flex

I personally handle all my social media outlets that I’m available on. I’ve always taken it upon myself to keep up and create post. I do my best to reach out and follow up with fans and supporters whether it be through DM’s or post I try to be consistent as possible. I feel that it’s a better approach to handle your socials by yourself and keep things organic as possible. Ads are great for promoting a product but also come with a lot of non sense traffic so it can be a little bit of a back and forth battle to find the real people you’re trying to reach. Any advice I would have for now is to control as much of your pages as you can until your growth outweighs those options and you need a bigger team. Read more>>

Kiersten Roy

Social media can be hard because I think it’s all too easy to get caught up with the vanity metrics. Likes and followers are often used as a measurement of success when they don’t actually move the needle in our business. For me, I have chosen to manage my social media for the time being. I am currently investing in other areas of my business so while I would love to outsource this, it’s not something that is in my budget at this time. Read more>>

La Smith

I manage my own media platforms. I do so because the layout I create is very specific and personal. It’s more than just producing photos to put out… to me, the order in which, timing, hue, and feel of my entire page together creates one piece that screams me. Because of that, I only entrust myself with the background process of my media production. I don’t necessarily sell through my social media pages — they’re just for display — so I can’t say it’s driven up sales, however it’s given people a chance to see my fingerprint. In person interactions are the best. Read more>>

Karen Hoekstra

I manage our social media accounts. Being the face of the business has let me stay authentic to our audience. I have worked with outside teams in the past, which have added value, but I always come back to managing it on my own. I like the personal touch it brings, interacting with our customer base. That being said, after almost eight years of focusing on social media to reach our community, I decided to leave social for 6 weeks earlier this year to focus solely on our newsletter. I was getting frustrated with the changes in social media algorithms and didn’t feel authentic using sales tactics and gimmicks to get engagement or to show up in our followers feeds. Read more>>

Courtney Pugh

Love this question and the answer is- both! After managing Piccadilly’s branding and social channels over the years, I started to hone my approach towards a very authentic engagement strategy and love to get creative with brand campaigns/designs that feel unique and genuine to our audience. The response we see is huge with existing customer engagement and organic growth with new followers. We acknowledge what’s trending on social platforms but always try to think outside the box when it comes to our own campaigns! Read more>>

Kiersten O’Donnell

At this moment I still handle all of our social media accounts. I utilize all forms of social media from Tiktok, and Instagram to Facebook. Being the owner, I have a vision for this company and want it portrayed in a certain way on social media and so far so good! The toughest part about managing our social media is staying up to date on trends and posting frequently. Social media has been one of, if not our biggest driver for revenue. According to our contact forms 75% of our clients are finding us through social media. For anyone who is a business owners curious about social media, you need to immerse yourself into the culture and utilize it for all it is worth. Read more>>

Riana Richardson

I manage my own social media. I would like to get to the point where I could get someone to do it.. I have to do it on my own because my business hasn’t increased enough to hire someone else to manage it. So far it’s been challenging because I have to do services free or low cost between clients to have pictures to post. If you’re going to go into the tooth gem business have friends that are interested or be willing to do free or low cost services to get your services seen and, social media marketing is really important. Posting and having a brand is important. Read more>>

Ariella Tintle

So I currently run my own social media page. I focus mostly on Instagram and a bit on Facebook. I find my target market spends the most of their time on those platforms. And when I am consistent with posting on those platforms it’s undeniable how many new client request I get! But choosing to run my own social media is like having a second job. Sometimes it’s fun and I love it, other times it’s stressful and gets put on the end of my todo list. Read more>>

Ronnie Barth

I manage my own social media (Instagram), as it is both a showing portfolio of my pieces and work, as well as a personal account to keep up with my friends and family around the globe. Instagram is a great platform to find inspiration, make connections with other like-minded artists, but hard to keep up with the algorithm if you plan on gaining a large following. My profile, at the time of this article, has little followers, but does the most important job – help other accounts find my work. I have been approached by galleries, websites, and zines to contribute my work to. My advice for social media is to put yourself out there and interact with pages that are looking for artists to be a part of their projects. A large following doesn’t always mean success! Read more>>

Chris Hunn

I manage my own social media. I made that decision because I have experience as a digital marketer, I enjoy it and it allows me to spend money elsewhere for the business. As for results, I’m closing in on 65K followers on Instagram since launching in Oct. 2021 and just over 35K on TikTok. Both organic and paid social have been instrumental in the growth of my business. One of the most important things is post consistently. Also engage with customers/followers and respond to all DMs. Read more>>