Top 3 Ways to Make Money as a Social Media Service Provider

Posted by Houssem in Blog, Social Media Management

May
4

Did you know that some average people like you and me are making 5 figures each month doing various social media tasks for their clients?

Did you know that social media is probably the most in-demand job online right now?

Did you also know that it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to start helping clients with their social media marketing and making good money from it (I bet you knew this)?

All of these questions prove that there is a huge demand in the social media service providing market that yet to be fulfilled.

Although there is still much room in this market, not everyone is doing well in it mainly because social media is a fast changing game and requires someone who is up-to-date with everything going on.

So what are the opportunities for you?

I won’t lie to you and tell you that you’ll be making 5 figures a month after 3 or 4 months from starting to offer your services. However, if you follow the right training and focus on growing your service providing brand, you’re definitely going to hit that number and even more. To clear things up for you, here are top 3 ways to making money as a social media service provider:

1- Social media manager:

Social media management is probably the easiest among the 3. All you need to learn to start offering you services as a social media manager is how to manage various social profiles like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Linkedin, Google+, Pinterest…etc (although most clients focus only on the 2 giants Facebook and Twitter).

While a social media manager could have other tasks than management (like designing an effective social media marketing plan), most of the times, your clients will already have a plan that they want to execute. This will make it easy for you as you don’t really have to know how to draw effective strategies for all of your clients.

Social media managers could make from $2.000 part time to $10.000 full time if they don’t have any outsourcing. If you learn to hire other freelancers to do the job for you so you can only focus on getting clients, then you should expect to make a lot more.

Basic social media management includes following, unfollowing, replying, liking, retweeting, commenting, cleaning inbox, posting status updates, tweeting…etc.

Other tasks of a social media manager could be creating content, distributing it, managing reputation, conducting PPC campaigns…etc

2- Social media consultant:

Social media consultants could make $100-$500 per hour for average. Business owners hire consultants to analyze their existing social media presence and report what needs to be improved. Their roles could vary from doing audits to teaching clients (or people responsible for social media in a company) how to improve their existing social media marketing strategy.

While consulting is considered a target for many people who want to offer their social media services, it isn’t actually that easy to acquire consulting skills.

It’s true that anybody these days can call themselves consultant. However, today’s companies are realizing this fact and they are putting many hiring filters to determine who’s the best person for the job. If you don’t have a broad knowledge about social media and a broader experience doing consulting work, then you could forget about making real money with this option.

A consultant usually schedules a session with their clients to discuss how specific areas could be improved and also teach the client how to implement these changes. A social media consultant may also recommend platforms and services that should be used by the client as well as educating them about the opportunities that each platform could bring to their businesses.

3- Social media strategist:

There is no need to tell how much these guys are making because I’m sure that you already have a picture.

A social media strategist has to be super knowledgeable about social media. The only role that a social media strategist has is to draw an effective strategy and supervise managers to execute it correctly. You can think of the strategist as the maestro who tells various musicians what to do and how to do it.

I’m also sure that you’ve heard about how big companies have achieved great success using social media. You know who’s behind that success? Yes you got that right, it’s the social media strategist who has drawn an effective plan for the company’s social media marketing and made sure that everyone is following that plan. I’m not saying that strategists are the only important individuals in the company, but I’m just trying to show you how much impact a good strategist could have over a company’s success.

If you want to offer your services as a social media strategist, then you must have a very big successful work history. Companies pay these strategists a lot of money and that’s why they need to make sure they have the right person. If you’re just starting out, then you could forget about this role. You can instead focus on social media management, and after a while you’ll start forming a picture of what companies should do about their social media marketing, and what they shouldn’t. When this happens, you can then start offering your services as a social media consultant. After establishing yourself as a consultant and learning a lot about various markets and how their social media strategy should be drawn, then you can aim for the strategist position and never have to worry about money again.

The 3 roles that I mentioned above could actually interfere with each other, especially if you’re working with small businesses. You can find a social media manager who does some consulting and even planning. I’ve seen some knowledgeable managers who assess the company’s social media presence, draw an effective social media marketing strategy and execute it. However, if you’re just starting out, then you should stick with basic management plans and upgrade your services as you learn more.

So, what do you think the potential of social media service providing could be, and how much time it will take to reach that potential? Share your experience with us in the comment section bellow.

Hi, I’m Houssem. I created hqsocialmedia.com for one single reason, which is helping small businesses, startups and entrepreneurs make more money from social media. Interested? Let’s talk!