Social Media Managers

Who They Are, What They Do, How Much They Earn, How To Hire One and How To Become One

Almost every business needs a social media manager nowadays. This wasn’t the case back in 2020, but with everything moving online, Best Jobs in America estimated a 9% job growth for social media managers in 2021. Restaurants, dentists, retail shops and even chiropractors are going online. This is on top of all the existing online businesses and service providers that are already trying to grow their brands on the world wide web.

Social media managing is listed in Top CNN and Payscale’s top 100 with big growth, great pay, and high job satisfaction. However, being a social media manager isn’t as plushy as job as it sounds. Everyone looks at the paycheck, but nobody looks at the hard work and the level of stress and commitment involved, especially when different time zones are involved.

If you’re looking to freelance and get extra income online, know your way around social media platforms and love creating content, this may be for you.

CNN Today also estimates that the income bracket for social media managers range between $57,400 and $89,900, and if you have a whole team under you with a wide portfolio of services, doing 6 figures yearly isn’t that impossible.

Perception

Social media managers are not girls with manicured nails tapping on their phones nonstop while chewing on a gum. Well, they can be, but that’s not all they do.

Social media workers are generally a creative bunch of people, who enjoy creating content, have lots of ideas when it comes to design, enjoy working with people (very social), can stay up late and are hard workers. They have a good command of the English language and are constantly adding new skills to their repertoire.

What To Look For When Hiring One

When you hire a social media manager, you are supposed to ensure that they:

• are able to do research into your company’s branding, find out what your company does, and who your competitors are
• are able to navigate and know the ins and outs of popular platforms such as Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Tik Tok, YouTube and LinkedIn, whichever your business prefers (I may have missed out some). Please do not expect them to know all platforms well, unless you are ready to pay a hefty price for it. Learning and mastering each platform takes time.
• are able to work with your team in creating content that portrays your image and branding, to grow your brand and get it noticed on social media platforms
• understand your company’s business goals and priorities
• in some cases, work with your company’s strategists to come up with world class headlines and advertisements
• schedule social media posts so that they reach their targeted audience across the globe at different time zones
• track content outreach and popularity with social media stats and report these stats back to you
• most social media managers (this being a newer job listing) do not have 10 years of experience, but due to the ever changing algorithms and requirements of social media, a 10 year experience may not be the thing you want to look for.

There are many types of social media managers. Some specialize only in Facebook ads. Some only do Instagram, while others focus on LinkedIn.

What They Do

In addition to all those listed above, a social media manager is constantly learning new things. They may start off with being well versed in a particular platform, and eventually go on to master more platforms.

They will learn designing, and eventually come up with amazing designs for the company they’re working for, including creating your logos and crafting a design associated with that said company.

They may go on to learn video publishing and editing, and help the company to edit and publish videos.

They check out the most trending hashtags that are inline with the company’s motto and visions, in order to attract better audiences.

Of course, the more they can do, the more they will charge.

Want To Become A Social Media Manager? Here’s How.

1. Find your target audience. Don’t be a jack of all trades, master of none. If you love social media and love spending time on it, then pick what works for you. Are you especially good in Facebook ads? Are you into Instagram stories and reels? Are you more into designing and creating content? Figure it out and know exactly what to offer to your client. Get a few clients under your belt, and grow your experience and skill set as you go. Some social media managers I know have gone to to learn video editing, photo shooting and graphic designing along the way.
2. Join a community. Find people and groups that you can relate with, especially other social media managers and designers, and do some networking. Refer and get referrals. Do networking and meet ups. These will be the people who will support, motivate, and guide you when you come across road blocks.
3. Invest in yourself. When I say invest, I mean both financially and emotionally. Take up courses (if you can afford them) to short cut and speed your way to learning more and mastering social media management. Take time to develop your skill set and constantly find new things that you can offer in your portfolio.
4. Do not undervalue yourself. This is one of the most common mistakes rookies will make, and will only attract less than ideal clients. Know your worth and value your own time. Stick to your pricing as long as it’s not unreasonable. Don’t bend over backwards and serve someone you may not like, just for a lower salary. Nothing screams amateur more than a package that comes across as too cheap. Personally, I’d pay more to know that someone is promising me quality as well as positive results. As your experience and skill set grow, increase your pricing.
5. Set boundaries. Some social media managers are so keen to be seen as available that they allow their clients to email, call or message them nonstop through the night, and expect immediate replies. Set some off-time for yourself to take a breather and rest.
6. Know your strengths. This is what you need to tell your potential clients when they ask for a portfolio and you haven’t had one yet. Instead of focusing on your lack of clients, tell them what you can do, and how you can help them grow their brand, gain more followers and in turn, generate more leads and income. Do not worry about the number of followers you have on your own page — you are focusing on growing their brand, not yours, and when you do your job well, your brand will grow organically through word of mouth and referrals.
7. Advertise on freelancing platforms. A lot of growing companies (even social media managers who have too much on their plate) are looking to hire. Popular platforms such as Upwork, Fiverr, and Indeed are great places where these people find job recommendations and also where you can get hired to join their teams.
8. Leverage LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a great platform for finding job opportunities. Your bio and profile on LinkedIn should exactly be what you put on a resume when you are applying for a job, so in this sense LinkedIn is different from Facebook and Instagram. When you approach a company especially on LinkedIn, make sure you put in the effort and do a little background research on what their company is about instead of using a one for all template.
9. Do not take on all jobs. Stay true to yourself. If something feels off, or if the company’s branding and values do not agree with you, don’t agree to the job, as it will affect your work quality. Say no when you feel that the prospect is not a good fit and may cause tension and uneasiness along the way. Listen to your intuition.
10. Stay positive. It can get tough and the thing about starting a business online is it can get pretty lonely sometimes, especially if the people around you do not understand what it is you’re doing. So technically you don’t get a whole lot of support apart from the people inside your community and the groups that you’ve joined.
11. Remember to collect your social proof. Ask for testimonials from everyone you’ve helped, paid or unpaid. Though I do recommend to never, ever offer free services because this job is all encompassing and very, very time consuming.
12. Build a team if you need to. You don’t need to be making $20,000 monthly to hire a team. A good team, comprising people with the same values as you and the same drive as you, will help you to do so much more in terms of freeing up your time to concentrate more on whatever it is you do best. Hire copywriters, other social media managers, graphic designers, and virtual assistants to help with scheduling if you want to focus on content creation and video editing only, for example.

Conclusion

A social media manager does not just put pretty pictures on social media. There is purpose and aim behind every content that is posted. They also do designing, communications, creatives, crisis management, videography, press releases, the list goes on.

If you are a photography major, psychology major, have a good DSLR camera you use during your past time, or even if you are someone who just loves and understand social media, you can consider managing social media accounts as a side hustle, and go into it full time if you want to, because the income generated from being one can be very lucrative.

Unlike physical jobs where resumes and degrees are widely required, there is a low barrier entry for most online jobs. Anyone can be a virtual assistant, a designer, a social media manager or a funnel builder without needing to have a certificate for it.

“The Next Generation Of CMOs Will Come From Today’s Social Media Managers” — Gary Drenik, Leadership Strategy.

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