One question that comes up time and again from practice managers and partners is:
Couldn’t we just handle social media and Google reviews ourselves?
It’s a fair point. Most practices have capable admin teams, and posting on Facebook doesn’t feel like a specialist technical task. On the surface, it looks like something that can easily sit alongside everything else. But when you actually break it down, the time adds up more than most people expect. Not because any individual task is difficult, but because it becomes a steady, ongoing operational responsibility.
To make this concrete, here’s what it typically looks like for a practice posting around 2–3 times per week. This assumes the person managing it is familiar with the platforms and reasonably efficient - in reality, many practices find it takes longer, especially when ownership isn’t clearly defined.
Routine posts: about 3 hours per month
If you’re posting three times per week, that’s roughly 12 posts per month.
Even when you’re using NHS campaign materials, each post still needs someone to:
- read the original message
- adjust the wording so it makes sense for your patients
- pick an appropriate image
- publish and sense-check it
In practice, that takes around 15 minutes per post.
So over a full month: 12 posts × 15 minutes = 180 minutes
Which works out at 3 hours per month, just to keep routine posts going.
Practice-specific posts: about 2 hours per month
This is the part people often underestimate. Practices don’t just repost national campaigns. They need to communicate their own updates. Things like changes to appointment systems, closures, service reminders, or operational messages.
These take longer, because they need to be written properly and checked internally to make sure they’re accurate and clear.
A typical practice might publish 4 of these posts per month, and they usually take around 30 minutes each.
That’s another 4 posts × 30 minutes = 2 hours per month
Moderation and Google reviews: about 3 hours per month
Then there’s the ongoing background work.
Comments need checking. Google reviews need monitoring. Most of the time it’s quick, but it still requires someone to own it and keep an eye on things. This usually works out at roughly 30–45 minutes per week, which across a month comes to around 3 hours per month
Total internal time: about 8 hours per month
When you add it all together:
- Routine posts: 3 hours
- Practice-specific posts: 2 hours
- Moderation and reviews: 3 hours
That’s around 8 hours per month.
Not huge, but not insignificant either. It’s essentially a full working day of staff time, every month, just to keep things running properly.
What that actually costs
If you assume a fully-loaded staff cost of around £18 per hour, that’s: 8 hours × £18 = £144
Then add basic tools like graphics software or scheduling tools, which typically cost around £30 per month.
175
How that compares to Redmoor’s managed service
Redmoor’s Social Media Managed Service, which includes posting, moderation, Google review management, and bespoke campaign posts when needed, starts at £60 per month + VAT.
If you’re currently managing social media internally, it’s worth comparing that against a managed service. We help practices free up meaningful capacity while improving consistency. If you’d like, we can review your current setup and provide a simple comparison based on your practice. Get in touch with us at support@redmoorhealth.co.uk
