How much would you pay for social media advice for your small business?

[AndiMac]

I'm just trying to get a feel of the market out there, and thought I'd try a straw poll here first.

If you ran a small business of some sort of description, what would you being willing to pay for specific advice of how to improve or even start your online presence? You can set your own parameters here, but would your prefer an e-book? Someone to sit beside you and show you for a couple of hours? A whole day? A simple report detailing what you could do?

I've done a fair amount of volunteering for different charities, doing their social media and now that I have good experience under my belt to match my training, I'd like to start passing on that knowledge along with earning from it. But I don't have a clue how much people would be willing to pay or what angle to approach it from, so any opinions would be gratefully received.

Just thought to add, I'm not fishing for leads here! I have plenty locally, I just want to have an idea of what to offer and how much to charge before I approach them.

I've had a few PMs, thank you for those. For anyone else, feel free to send a message if you feel more comfortable giving numbers privately than here.

Hi, I've been thinking about doing this too -would love to know how to go about it and what to charge if anyone would like to either pm me or write on here!

Increasingly, local authorities seem to be providing this sort of thing for free. So I'm afraid the answer is nothing!

Free social media advice is available from many sources, but knowing WHAT to do, isn't the same as knowing HOW, WHERE, and WHEN to do it.

There will always be people who do their own accounts, car repairs, and website promotion, but for professional, time-efficient, hassle-free results, business owners would be well-advised to hire a local expert who can take care of it all, or if their budget is limited, support the owner as-and-when required, even if it is just to answer difficult questions.
Offering business owners a 'Bronze, Silver, or Gold website support service (based on your hourly rate), would be the best way to offer social media / website / marketing support for every budget.

I get the impression that a lot of businesses that don't use social media think that it's not something worth investing in, rather it's something they could get an intern/their 16 year old niece to do. It's only when people see the value of it, and can get a lot of use out of it that they'll be willing to pay a decent amount, but many small businesses who don't use it don't really see any true value in social, it's just something they feel they 'should' do.

So I'm not sure people who run small businesses would be terribly willing to pay for one-on-one advice. I think it would be worth considering running group seminars so the cost per client could be lower (say £50-£100), or doing something specialised and not necessarily beginner-focussed (e.g. ad bidding for small businesses) and charge a higher rate.

I just came across these responses when I was looking for something I posted before, so apologies for the slow response.

I decided that it wasn't an avenue I wanted to follow at this stage, mainly for the reasons mentioned by kusmile. I'm in a totally different business now, doing baking boxes. So if you are interested in that, PM me and I'll pass on my website address!