With millions of businesses willing to tap into its 5 billion user base, social media has become the perfect gold mine for businesses and one of the biggest platforms to start a marketing agency. But, to break even and make money as a social media manager; starting an agency is merely a first step.
There are a number of strategic steps to take to earn a decent income as a social media manager. And some of these steps are so important that they can make or break your success, even if you had the best of intentions.
In this post, I’ll be sharing with you some of the expert based strategies to start a social media marketing agency, make money and scale your business from scratch, in the following paragraphs.
Find your Goal
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This is one of the most formidable steps you can take to make money as a social media manager regardless of whether you’re starting from scratch or wherever.
Finding your goal involves identifying the things that matter to you as a social media manager. And the creating a mind map of possible steps you can take to achieve these things.
This leads you to being very intentional about building a successful social media management business. And one thing about being intentional is that you will be able to take core actionable steps that will deliver on your expected outcomes.
Start with setting a goal for your expected income. How much do you plan to earn over a certain period? After that, identify the actual market audience that can lead you to gaining such within a set period of time.
Create a Brand
Creating a brand will include steps like finding your goals, identifying your audience, picking out the target solution you want to create for that audience and putting together a social media management brand that will effectively lead you to achieving your goal.
So, if your goal is to target B2B brands on LinkedIn, your brand strategy will include actionable steps that might be slightly different from brands on Tiktok, Instagram etc.
Putting together a brand that your target audience can easily relate with and being able to share the kind of content that resonates with your expected brand outcomes is a great step forward to actually make money as a social media manager.
Start as a Freelancer
Freelancing gives you the opportunity to gain first-hand experience, build a portfolio and create a network of clients and fans while setting out and finding your feet.
It is one of your best first steps to easily make money as a social media manager. It is also one of your best strategies to save up funds while working on building a well-structured social media agency.
Also, as a freelancer, you have the chance to set up profiles on platforms outside the social media like other freelance platforms, build a brand and source for jobs.
You can also apply to work for firms as an independent contractor, while building your own brand. It’s a potpourri of options and opportunities for you to test the market; garner experience and decide what works for you as a social media manager.
Create Realistic Packages
Social media management roles involve diverse services, offers and demands. From content creation to PR services, Advertising & monitoring and Campaign Strategy, there are diverse services to provide for clients of all kinds, depending on their needs.
To make money as a social media manager, you can work on creating different kind of packages for different clients, based on their needs.
This increases your options and chances of getting jobs. Instead of lumping the whole social media management package together, break them down into separate offers based on what works for your clients.
This way, you get to provide clients with near custom social media solutions and charge them accordingly.
Offer Advertising Services
Social Media advertising is a great strategy to make money as a social media manager. Starting with Facebook, Instagram, YouTube or LinkedIn etc., develop expertise in social media advertising and get over to build a portfolio there.
Alternatively, you can learn or leverage and grow your expertise to advertise on a specific social media handle and become a top authority on advertising on that platform.
All you need to do here is create consistent result. Get focused on building consistent outcomes that meets client needs, use massive storytelling to showcase your results and watch your client base grow.
Outside of that, you can also have social media advertising as a stand-alone package within your social media management offer. This increases your chances of making an even more decent income.
Develop Content
Outside pure social media management, you can engage in creating content strategies, social media content and other kind of content for clients at a fee.
This is another important step to make money as a social media manager.
Considering that not all clients are in need of social media managers, some brands are merely in need of content creators for social media. And you can take up this role, depending on your niche.
Based on your expertise, you can decide to create video, audio, written or other forms of content for clients, at a fixed rate.
You can also create content plans or content marketing strategies based on your customer’s goals. This increases your options and chances of making money as a social media manager.
Post Sponsored Content
With millions of businesses rushing to tap into the social media gold mine of potential clients, you can turn yourself into an enabler of these marketing outcomes by making it possible for brands to post sponsored content on your social media platform.
First of all, for this to happen, you need a sizeable audience on your social media platforms. After that, you can choose to either create the sponsored content for the brand or allow the concerned brands to create it.
Remember the sponsored content can be video, audio, written content or any kind of content, depending on brand preferences. Where you offer to create the sponsored post, you will be ready to create work with the brand to create the post yourself.
On the other hand, where it’s self-created, the brands do the whole work while you work on posting the content alone.
Each of these options will attract different charges and outcomes and you should use only the options that will work for you and your brand.
Final Words
There are many ways to make money as a social media manager out of the listed options here. For example, outside of these top strategies, you can also engage in affiliate marketing on social media or even run trainings and social media management courses when you become a thought leader in the field.
But one thing is certain. You will need a lot of consistency, effort and skills to navigate the social media and actually earn a decent income right from scratch.
At Win Media Academy, we offer a certificate social media marketing course where you can learn all social media marketing skills, become an expert and go out there to start out as a professional social media manager. Sign up for the our certificate course on social media marketing here.
Remember that building a successful career as a social media manager demands continuous learning, staying on trends, having a robust portfolio, clientele and a network of connections. This and more are some of the things you’ll learn during our trainings.
Now it’s your turn. What are your biggest challenges when it comes to making money with social media management? Drop your comments below.
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