I started my social media and content marketing business a few years ago as a total beginner with no prior experience.
If you are really serious about working for yourself and having financial freedom, this is one of the most lucrative and easy to start businesses you can get into.
Why Become a Social Media Manager?
Online business owners need someone to manage all of their social media accounts in order for them to maintain a presence online, promote their brand, grow their email list and make sales.
Most entrepreneurs are too busy to handle multiple accounts.
That’s why they hire social media managers to help them with this.
Having your own social media management business can allow you to work from home and on your own schedule.
You can have clients from all over the world, not just in your own city, state or country.
You Can Make Steady Income from Home
Social media managers can charge anywhere from $1,000 - $10,000 per month to manage accounts for businesses.
There are some social media agencies that charge even more than this.
The other benefit is that offering this service allows you to create flat fee packages since the tasks associated with managing social media accounts are repetitive.
Flat fee packages save you a lot of time and can help you earn a lot more money as you will have predictable income each month instead of charging per hour.
What Does a Social Media Manager Do?
A social media manager gets paid by other businesses to manage and grow their social media accounts.
Businesses now rely on social media to attract customers in order to make money.
However, it takes tons of time to have a presence on all of the social media sites.
And this is why business owners hire freelancers and people like you to manage social media marketing tasks.
This is your opportunity to make money offering a service that is in high demand.
Who Pays for this Service?
As a social media manager you can get paid by different types of businesses that want to grow their online presence.
Here are a few examples of the types of businesses that you can sell your services to:
Lawyers, real estate agents, restaurants, doctor’s offices, online boutiques, coaches, consultants, authors, e-commerce companies, technology companies, hotels, spas, fitness centers, health practitioners, counselors…. And any type of business who wants to get visible on social media.
There are way more businesses you can work with that I listed above. But I just wanted to give you an idea.
Be Clear About The Services You'll Provide
Now that you have a background and some clarity of what a social media manager does, you need to get specific about what services you can provide to clients.
When I first started my social media business, I actually began as a blog writer.
Law firms and legal service companies hired me to write all of their blog posts.
But after a while, they also wanted me to help them promote their content on social media.
And this is how I became a social media manager and strategist.
Now I have a niche, but when I first started I helped a lot of different businesses.
When you are first starting out, I recommend that you be open to helping a wide variety of different types of businesses.
With time and experience, you can decide on a niche or a few different niches.
Now I offer social media marketing plus blog and content writing.
Content marketing is my specialty and companies pay me and my team of writers to churn out lots of blog posts each month.
What Type of services Can You Offer?
Pretty much as a social media manager, you are really a digital marketer.
So it’s really important that you understand marketing strategy and content marketing.
You need to help your clients with sharing content that will attract potential customers.
Here are some examples of services you could offer to help promote your client's business:
Posting on Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin:
You can manage your client's social media accounts by posting content like blog articles, images and videos. The content you share on these platforms need to be created with a target audience in mind.
Facebook Group Admin:
Businesses are using Facebook groups to create fans and sell products and services. It takes a lot of work to add members and get them active in the group.
Instagram Management:
Companies need help with posting regularly on Instagram and also growing a following. You can create custom images with free tools like Canva.
Pinterest Management:
There's lots of work handling Pinterest accounts and pinning every day. You can help setup and optimize Pinterest business accounts, setup rich pins and create images for each pin.
Blogging:
Many times, you clients will ask you to also write blog posts. This is a great opportunity to generate additional income.
Facebook Ads:
This is more of an advanced skill set. But if you learn how to run Facebook ads for clients, there's lots of potential for growing your business in this area.
Copywriting:
Copywriting involves knowing how to write persuasive written text that involves selling. You can write copy for website pages, landing pages, sales pages, product descriptions and email sales funnels. You could also charge a lot more money if you decided to add this service.
Graphic Design and Website Design
When I started my social media business, some of my clients asked me to help them build a website. This is something that if you don't know how to do, you can also outsource. I hired other freelancers to help me design a logo and Wordpress websites for my clients.
You Don't Have to Provide Every Service
When you are just starting out, it’s best to just offer simple social media posting or blog writing.
There's no way that you can learn every single thing about social media and online marketing all at one time. Some of these services you can learn over time as you work with more clients.
So don't panic and think you have to know everything all at once....because you don't.
One of the best ways to get experience with social media is to grow your own social media accounts.
Create a new Instagram page for your business and grow your followers and share content. Start growing your Twitter page followers.
Practice on yourself. That's an easy way to learn social media in a business context.
Your Website
After you have an idea of the types of services you would like to start offering, the next step is to create your website.
You don't have to have a fancy website or a perfect one either. When you are just starting out, just keep it simple.
After you start making money, you can invest in a more sophisticated site. When it comes down to selling, in my experience, clients want to Know, Like and Trust you more than any thing else.
When starting out, you can just have a SIMPLE 3 or 4 page website that has the following sections:
Home: Tell people what you do and provide a summary of your services.
Services: List out what services you offer.
Contact: Create a simple contact form for people to get in touch with.
Optional - About: You can have an About page (or you can just leave this out). Your about page would showcase who you are and your experience and expertise.
Create a Strategy and a Business Plan
You also need to be clear about your ideal client.
Business plans are great to help you get clarity and to communicate your business vision.
But I don’t recommend that you spend hours, weeks or months creating a business plan.
Instead you can write a simple business plan and strategy.
Here are the sections of the simple business plan that you can include:
Overview
Describe your mission - what is the need for your new business?
Describe your main service offerings.
Briefly describe the type of clients you will be targeting and how your business will serve those customers.
Summarize the competition and how you will get market share (what is your competitive advantage?)
Target Market
Define the target market for your service. (Will you help restaurants, online business owners, fitness coaches, etc?)
Describe the need for your services.
Sales and Marketing Plan
Describe how you will network and find new clients.
Will you blog? Will you network on Facebook or Linkedin to find clients?
Will you network in person at networking events?
Answering these questions can help you create a very quick and simple business strategy that will help you get clear on your next steps.
After you write down the answers, you can use this material to write the content for your website.
I have a free training that shows you how to become a Social Media Manager even as a beginner. Register here.
How to Price Your Social Media Services
If you price your services the right way, you can make a good profit.
If you price your services the wrong way, you can spend hours and hours and feel like you are working for pennies.
And we don't want this to happen.
So that's why I am going to break down different ways to price your services to be profitable.
Create Your Pricing Strategy
You should first make a list of the different things you will offer based on your client’s needs.
So list out exactly what platforms you will post on and how many times per month.
You can break this out. So if you want to specialize in Instagram you can create a package just for that.
Or if you want to offer Pinterest, then you create a special package just for Pinterest.
You can also create packages for all social media accounts, but you MUST be specific about the amount of content that will be shared and the frequency.
This is how you start to create your pricing structure.
Flat Fees Vs Hourly
I recommend that you charge a flat fee price and not hourly.
The reason is this:
You never really know exactly how long it will take because there are too many variables.
If you tell your client it will take 2 hours and then you finish it in 1 hour, you lose money.
There are exceptions to this.
If you are a Virtual Assistant who also offers social media management you can do hourly but its better that you make client’s purchase a set amount of hours per month.
Monthly Retainers or Service Packages
You should also require that your clients pay you on a monthly ongoing basis.
So for example you can charge $500 - $2,500 or more per month for social media management.
By making your clients pay you each month, you will get a steady stream of income that is predictable.
This flat fee monthly amount will also make it easier for you to outsource and budget so that you still make a profit.
Project Based Work
For social media, it’s better to get clients to pay you each month, but there are some things that are more project based.
For example, a website is typically a one time project that you charge a flat fee for.
Or you can charge a social media account setup fee where you create and setup their accounts or optimize their existing account.
Many people do this with Pinterest accounts because it needs to be optimized to be effective before you starting doing monthly pinning.
What to Charge When Starting Out?
If you are just starting out and you don’t have previous experience or examples of other social media accounts you managed, you may need to charge a low price.
Typically I recommend in this scenario that you don’t charge that much.
The strategy behind this is that you get experience to build your portfolio of work and then charge more for the next couple of clients.
As you get more experience and you have gotten results for clients, start raising your prices.
Finding Clients
There are a lot of different ways to find clients for your social media management business.
I created a free guide that explains the different ways to connect with potential client's here.
Starting a social media management business is a great way to work for yourself because its in high demand and so many business owners need help with this.
And once you learn how social media marketing works, you'll be able to use that knowledge to grow any type of business online.
If you are serious about growing a social media management I have a free guide that shows you how to get started.
Alma Bradford
Alma teaches women how to create a profitable business that they can work from home. She also has courses for people who want to start a freelance, consulting, coaching or serviced based business. Read and learn more at www.AlmaBradford.com
