Are you one of those who are obsessed with posting on Instagram, you love Pinterest you've tried out TikTok, you're an expert at Facebook and now you want to turn that passion into a business by becoming a social media manager? well, welcome home.
In this article, I will Share with you the 8 steps that you can take to become a social media manager in 2020.
These methods are straightforward steps that you can start working with today to build this business for yourself.
1. Choose your niche: Being interested in social media, I believe you are totally aware of the importance of having a niche.
The truth is we cannot be everything to everyone and as you probably know there are tons of social media managers out there so it's important that you can communicate clearly to your ideal customer who you want to work with.
However, you might be worried with thoughts like, what if I can't find that many clients, I need to cast my net wide so that I can get clients to work with, etc.
Well here's the thing, the first thing that should be done is for you to choose a niche that you can start marketing but that doesn’t mean that if clients of another niche come to try not to refuse their offer just because they aren’t your ideal customer.
I would advise you still work with them especially in the beginning when you're trying to get experience and build up your income.
Moreover, if you don't choose an ideal customer you're not going to be able to come up with a good marketing strategy that will eventually in the long term bring in the kind of people that you want to work with.
Identify the type of business you would like to manage, maybe you want to do social media management for restaurants, local stores or an e-commerce business make the decision
I suggest that you pick an industry that you're passionate about and somewhat knowledgeable about because it'll make it so much easier for you to produce content for such.
In addition, having an ideal audience is very important because creating an effective and engaging Instagram content is all about being able to target the kind of people that you want to attract, and if you don't have an idea of who you want to talk to then you won’t be able to come up with good engaging content for them especially at the beginning.
2. Create your own social media presence (Social Proof): I cannot stress enough just how important this is.
There are so many people out there, trying to pitch their services as a social media manager but then their own content can't even justify them.
Yes, many are of the opinion that they have proof of accounts they have managed and it was a success but come to think of it, what is the first thing you think your potential clients will check?
Still thinking?... well it’s your personal profile, my friends... So please try as much as you can not to neglect your Social media platform.
Prioritize getting a really solid profile even if you don't have a large number of followers it's fine just make sure that your content is on point and that will be the biggest factor in convincing potential clients to start working with you and honestly, if you're really passionate about social media management then this should be the easy part for you.
Always remember to do your best work for yourself but give your clients the worth of their money.
3. Reach out: Explore any opportunity you have to reach your clients because in the first few months of your business.
Social media marketing alone is not what is going to get you your clients and that's not to say that doing your own social media marketing isn't going be effective obviously it will, it's been proven over and over again.
The advert on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc. is super effective at converting online followers to customers, but if you're starting from the scratch it will be way more effective for you to reach out to potential clients rather than just throwing contents out on the internet and hoping people hire you.
This is one of the biggest mistakes that I see a lot of new social media managers doing, many actually think they can just set up their social media presence account and people will come to them and they'll hire them.
Believe me, I have tested the waters at both ends i.e. waiting to be contacted and going to fish for clients myself, and apparently, the majority of the jobs I worked on came from me reaching out to people and offering them services.
It will take a while for you to establish yourself before you start to automate the process of lead generation of people just finding you online and reaching out to you about your work.
5. Pitch Away: Similarly, to what I mentioned above in the bonus point, another you can entice your prospect by doing an email saying you would love to offer your basic social media management package at a discounted rate, and that you are willing to do it for half the price for the first month and if they like your services then you'll present a new contract at the full price.
However, this technique is risky and does require that you stick to your guns.
Feel free to raise your prices after that initial month because what you don't want to do is get yourself stuck in a contract with a client that doesn't value you or your work, this is something many have struggled with.
Be very thoughtful and intentional when it comes to discounts and I know a lot of people in the creative industry are very much like they don't and won’t ever discount their services.
I totally agree with creatives with such notion, many of them have experienced the wrath of the underpaying world.
But those who are just getting started, make sure you discount your services in a very thoughtful and strategic way, it would be an effective way to get new clients to actually sign on and work with you.
So, endeavor to send as many mails as possible.
If you really want to see your business grow and get to a place of sustainable income you need to be pitching constantly, nonstop.
Put yourself out there, I know it is scary but it's going to be the most effective way to get business for yourself.
6. Package Plan: create some packages once you get a sense of what your clients might be looking for, creating social media marketing packages are synonymous to packages in any service-based business because it is essential like creating a menu of what you have to offer.
You probably could do a lot more than what you're going to describe in these packages but you want to put it together in an attractive and convincing way so that people know what they might want from you.
If you just say on your website “I'll do social media marketing for you, hire me to manage all your different social profiles.” Some people might say it CTA is cool but the truth is you didn’t give your prospect any room to really know what they will get from and you are not in any way different from those Instagram businesses that upload products and expects every potential client to come to their DM.
But if you can list your services like
- X amount of hours engagement on Instagram
- X number of Instagram posts a month
- X number of Pinterest posts
- X number of YouTube videos
- X number of podcast episodes
Then people can get a picture in their mind of what they will get from you.
You can as well add a sample content calendar that you might use for the client so let's say:
Instagram: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday
Bog post: Tuesday.
Facebook live: Thursday etc
Or whichever way you want it to look that is really going to help your ideal clients envision what it will be like to work with you and that is the whole point of putting together packages. However, at the end of the day if somebody comes to you and they want something outside your packages you can create a custom package for such try as much as possible not to decline an offer just because it doesn’t fit into any of your packages.
Another important factor is that you get a sense of what your ideal client wants if you pitch packages.
Endeavor not to be too strict with the package, like “I only do X Y and Z it's going to be hard to get clients because you're coming at it from a perspective of what do you want to offer rather than what do people need from you.
Once start working with some clients for a while you'll get a sense of what most of them need to have a successful social media presence for their business and then you can start offering that as a package as a formula because you have expertise around what people need plus having packages listed on your website.
It is only a matter of time before people get to know that what you're doing is a real business that you have something to offer and they know what they're going to get out of it once you've got your:
A. Social media presence in place
B. Got yourself a few clients
C. You've developed packages
Now you are ready to put all of this into a system that can run on itself to generate new clients as often as possible.
I think a lot of people jump the gun in their business and try to start off at this point because everybody is so obsessed with passive income and automatic generation, but the fact is it's going to take probably a number of months and maybe even more than a year for you to get to that point in your business where you're ready to actually set aside the time to create these systems that can sell your services for you.
Then ideally at the end of the email sequence either it's a course regardless of the type of freebie or it is just a weekly funnel that takes people through the process of getting to know, that you will offer them some value and, in the end, you can jump on a discovery.
7: Set up meetings: Call your prospects, invite them to join you on zoom where you can talk about your services and how you might be able to offer them to their business.
That way over time as people discover you through your social media content whether it's a blog, YouTube channel, a podcast, etc. They get to know you on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, etc. They download their freebie they get to know you even more through an email funnel.
8. Expand The Business: You'll get to a point where you will start getting requests on a weekly basis and you're going to have a constant stream of new potential customers chatting with you and signing contracts with you and of course once you get to that point you're going to want to scale up by hiring people to help you.
Maybe you'll find somebody who's an Instagram expert and somebody else who's really great at Tik-Tok or maybe you'll just find other generalists like yourself to take on one client per person that's another really good way to divide it.
However, you decide to do it once it gets to a point where you can't do all the content creation and your own marketing by yourself then you can bring on more people to help you and that is the formula for scaling social media marketing.
Bonus: They say you save the best for the last right? Allow me to introduce you to Village Pen. Now to manage your clients page or even your page you need creative designs and most would say Canva that's fine but for those struggling with designs even on Canva this is a good shot for you. But sincerely if you really want a professional design on your platforms I would advise you subcribe to Vilage Pen today.
Imagine you end up managing more accounts than you expected with Village Pen all you will need to be worried about is how the post goes live Village Pen will handle the rest of your designs you can read more about their services
For those who have been in the game before now, you'd definitely know the struggles that comes with having top notch graphics works both for formalities and for social media (marketing), here is an opportunity for you to save yourself the stress and time, sign up for this and give your business a professional and quality feel.
Bonus: Because it is Christmas season I have a wonderful gift for you all, I have been asked severally what kind of tools I use for my social media management, well I have listed a couple of them some of their special functions include:
1. Schedule Carousel Post for free on (Instagram and Facebook)
2. Create Motion Graphics
3. Creative Designs etc.
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