Businesses need social media managers. They might not know it yet, but they do. So many of them are baffled by how to use social media for business. Many see other businesses successfully using social media around them but don’t know the first thing about it themselves.
They wonder if things like Facebook and Twitter are actually useful for business because they haven’t been able to crack the code. What they’re starting to realize more and more is that they’re really missing out if they don’t understand social media. They’re leaving a lot of money on the table. If a business wants to stand out, be found, and make connections with customers these days, then it’s so important for them to be on social media.
That’s where you come in. You can offer your services as a social media manager for local businesses. You can be the one who sweeps in and offers your expertise on using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, and other social sites for business.
Businesses need you so they’re willing to pay handsomely for someone to take this off their hands. They’re totally baffled and it’s so confusing that you may not have any trouble at all getting clients. It doesn’t matter whether you live in a big city or a smaller town, there are bound to be local businesses who could use your help and expertise in this area.
This can take really any shape you want it to. You can offer to take a look at their current social media efforts and make suggestions on how to change and improve it.
Or, you can get businesses set up on social media in the first place. Maybe they haven’t even taken that step to create a Facebook page or anything else. You can be the one to help them get up and running. They’ll be grateful for it and will pay handsomely for it.
You can even take this a step further by both creating and managing their social media properties. They’ll pay you every single month to create and manage everything. You can even communicate with their customers, get their cover art and images set up, make relevant tweets and posts, and so on.
You can offer different packages for clients to choose from. Maybe you’ll set up some monthly posts on autopilot for them. Or, maybe you’ll be very hands-on and manually interact on their social media properties every day.
As you can see, becoming a social media manager for local businesses is very flexible. You can offer all sorts of different packages for customers and clients to take advantage of. You can get them in the door by offering to set up their social media properties and upsell them on managing their social media properties.
What Should You Offer?
Are you comfortable with social media? That’s probably the first thing you should consider before you go any further with this. Hopefully, the answer’s yes. But, even if you’re not yet comfortable with social media and aren’t sure what you’ll offer to your future customers, it’s easy to get started.
Social media isn’t complicated. Sure, you’ll want to study up, gain a lot of experience, and pay attention to best practices. At the same time, you can learn enough to get started helping local businesses very soon. As long as you know the basics, they’ll think you’re a tech genius because many of them don’t know the first thing about getting started with this.
What you’ll offer to these businesses differs depending on your level of experience. You might want to only offer the basics in the very beginning. Maybe you’ll offer to set up a Facebook page and Twitter account, for example.
If you have more experience, maybe you’ll offer to optimize things like their social media profiles, images, graphics, and even the way their blog or website links to their social media properties.
As you gain more experience, you can start to add things on. For example, you can start to drive traffic to their social media profiles to help them gain friends, followers, and likes. You can start to manage their paid ads, such as Facebook ads.
You can ensure that they have social media that converts and really builds relationships with customers. You can start to perform actual customer service using web properties.
Think about what local businesses need and want. Offer what you can for now, learn what you don’t know, and then offer more as time goes on. You can soon become a highly in demand social media manager with potential clients knocking down your door.
Getting Your Own Social Media Properties Up And Running
Practice what you preach! It doesn’t make much sense for you to offer your services as a social media manager if you don’t have your own social media properties up and running.
I recommend a Facebook page, Twitter profile, LinkedIn Profile, and profiles on any of the other social media services you’ll be offering to others.
This will help you get clients (because that’s one of the goals of social media) and it will act as a portfolio that can convince people to hire you.
Appearing Professional
You want to get started as professionally as possible with this. Get a website up that features your services and everything you offer. Start building a list of potential clients. Consider giving them a free report or some other freebie to entice them to sign up for your list. From there, you can offer your services to your email list, build relationships, get word of mouth going, and really grow your business as a social media manager.
Taking On Assistants
You might find that you soon need assistants to really get going with this. You probably want to scale your business up quickly, but you’re only one person—there’s only so much you can accomplish in a day.
Consider hiring assistants (once you get to an income level that supports that) to help you with some of the more mundane aspects of running social media accounts.
In addition to human assistants, consider tools like HootSuite as well that can make it a lot easier to run social media accounts for clients.
Getting Businesses Started With a Basic Package
When client first hire you, they might not be ready to hire you for everything you offer. They may want to test you out first. That’s great—you can quickly win them over.
Offer to analyze their social media accounts and make recommendations. Or, offer to set their social media accounts up in the first place if they don’t yet have them.
Upselling Businesses
If you make your clients happy, they might be ready to hire you for more when it comes to their social media accounts.
Don’t be afraid to offer upgraded packages, special discounts for upgrading, and special deals for those who are already clients.
You want to become their go-to social media manager. That means capturing them in your web as the only one they hire.
Show them that they can make more money and reach their customers in better ways by having active, powerful social media accounts. If you show and demonstrate that clients can make more money, they’ll want to take you up on your upsell.
Creating Automated Monthly Packages
One upsell you can offer is a monthly package. Every month, you’ll maintain their social media accounts, create potentially viral posts, interlink social media accounts, interact with fans and customers, and so on. Take a look at what social media managers you admire are doing and come up with a great monthly package that will suit your clients—put your own spin on what you offer based on what your local clients need and want.
The monthly income is fantastic. It’s generally easier to work for and with the same clients month after month than it is to always chase new ones.
Scaling Your Business Up As a Social Media Manager
You might get started small with this but you’ll want to quickly scale up. You might be surprised, but there are many 6-figure-earning social media managers. Some work for larger companies and others work for small, more local companies.
You can earn a great income with this business model and there’s certainly a need for more professionals in this field. Get started today and see where it takes you. I think you’ll find that you can quickly bump your income up, up, and up if you put your mind to it.