*** HOW TO BECOME A SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER? ***

Hello

I've been lurking around in the Warrior Forum and I haven't really contributed yet. I think it's time to become an active member and to add some value. Now it looks like a quite lots of people have questions about local/offline marketing and offering social media services to brick-and- mortar businesses.

As I said, I have not been really active here in Warrior Forum, but I have been reading a lot, and noticed that basically every day, someone posted a new thread with offline marketing related questions.

Many of you is wondering, what kind of services you should offer, what price you should charge, whether you should have a website or not, what is the best way to approach businesses and offer them social media, mobile marketing, etc.

I've been doing offline marketing for 2 years now. I started small from doing some social media consultancy... for friends who were running businesses. Now I provide not only social media consultancy, but also management, website design, SEO, video marketing, local marketing, reputation management and I am working with the team of 12 full time Filipinos

Do you think, that I was having some plan? You bet!
I didn't know what I was doing. Moreover I even didn't know, that I am doing a consultancy basically. I haven't charged anything... and in my opinion I was just giving my friends some tips on how to use social media. Tips on strategies I used for promoting my eBay shop, which I was having that time...

Ok, so here is my blueprint in a nutshell
(please note that English isn't my first language so if you find any
typos or grammar flaws you can keep them)

1. Your branding
2. Building your service packages
3. How to find your first clients
4. Doing the work - you or outsourcing
5. Nuts & Bolts

Step 1
Your branding.

I always say, that you should be living example of what you say. If I received a phone call, email or a proposal offering social media management from someone, who didn't have their social media presence sorted out... I wouldn't buy... For me it suggests, that person may not know exactly what to do. Social media management - lets think what does it mean? It means, that someone will act on behalf of your company, will represent you, as a business owner. Would you allow someone with no experience to manage your social media presence?
There are plenty of social media managers out there. They are also in high demand. But let me quote famous Gary Vaynerchuk: "99.5% of social media experts are clowns". And don't get me wrong here... I understand, that all of us want to make money doing this or that... but you need to know, what you do. If you don't like social media, if you don't use it, DO NOT provide this service to other businesses just for the sake of making money and charging them a lot!!!
Think what you are good at, what you like and stick to it. Maybe you are great in video marketing? Fine! There are plenty of businesses looking for video services.

If you love social media and use them on a regular basis, if you are a "people person", then social media management might be the type of service you offer to other businesses. You should have your social media presence fully set up by now, maybe you just need to do a couple of tweaks.

Ensure that you have these elements in place:
1. Decide, if you prefer to build your personal brand or a company brand.
2. Whatever you choose (personal or company brand) - ensure this name is available as username for your social media presence and as a domain name. Secure it right away.
3. Simple website/blog, where you can post articles, describe your services and get people to contact you
4. Set up your social media profiles - Facebook Page, Twitter, Linkedin, YouTube;
5. Ensure you have a custom made backgrounds, side banner and landing page on Facebook, use the same colours on website/blog and your SM profiles.

Use the same colours and style on your business cards, leaflets, and letter heads. It makes the impression, that you are bigger than in reality. I set this up at the beginning (the look of the brand developed over the time, however I am still using the same colours). Many clients had the impression, that I am a big company actually.

I started from offering a simple social media set up (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube - with branded backgrounds) and it helped me a lot, that I had my own presence sorted out.

You don't need to spend big money on design - get someone on Fiverr to design the logo for you, header for the website, backgrounds. It won't cost you more than $30 at the most.
You should know how to set up a simple website using Wordpress, if not - you will find someone to do it for you on Fiverr again.

You may also want to secure your name on other social network channels and social bookmarking sites. There's a very handy tool, which helps you to check, if your username is available or not:
Knowem

If you decide to secure your name, do it. Again you can find someone on Fiverr to do it for you.

Step 2.
Building your services

Decide what kind of services you can offer. Typical services may include:
- profiles set up
- routine maintenance (adding fans and followers, posting updates, removing spam messages and filtering messages, retweeting, sharing other people's content, etc.)
- reputation management (it may include social media presence, and also Google directories)
- content creation & distribution (creating videos, blog posts, articles)

You can offer this services seperately or put them together into social media management packages at different price points.

How to calculate the price you need to charge? Think about the following:
- how much you would like to earn per month
- how many hours you would like to work per month (basically doing this stuff for the client, ie: adding followers or posting content)

Do the simple math:

Divide your desired monthly earnings by the amount of hours you are willing to spend working on clients account (I will be talking about outsourcing later). You will get your hourly late.

The next step is to create a draft of your packages. Think, what maybe beneficial for your client, how much time do you need to do this?

Example:
let say you are doing just a simple maintenance on client's accounts: posting 1 update/day to FB & Twitter, 2 retweets, responding to mentions, commenting on posts etc., adding 10 Twitter followers - if you do this stuff on a daily basis, you know, that's pretty quick and shouldn't take longer than 15 mins?
If you provide this service monthly 5 days a week, it's around: 5 hours (considering that month has only 4 weeks). Multiply this by your hourly rate and you've got the price for your basic mini package ready.

This price may be different though, if you need to calculate your outsourcing costs.

Step 3
How to find your first clients

1. Use all your channels - post useful content for your audience, provide real value; my first, very serious client found me on Facebook
2. Make your blog your main hub
3. Use your community - start with who you know (if you have some existing offline clients, you can upsell them easily)
4. Become known in your local area (attend networking events, seminars - there are people, who are looking for it)
5. Be a "Friend" - do not post only business/marketing related content, share also some fun topics and common interests
6. Search for "social media assistant/manager" in Google Alerts and Twitter
7. Host online/offline event
8. Get speaking engagement (this is a great way to get a couple of clients on board - for me the best way to get speaking gigs is through the contacts I got from networking events)
9. Ask for referrals
10. Partner with other companies/specialists, who offer complementary services (ie. website design or SEO)

Would you like to know how do I find my social media clients?
At the moment my business grows thanks to social media and referrals. I wouldn't need to do anything at the moment to get new clients. But I am a 100% "people person" and I love meetings and chatting. One method which I use for generating clients was this:
- let's do search for "emergency dentists north london", you will see there are plenty of practices paying for Google Adwords
- go to External Keyword Tool and check how much is an approximate CPC (in our case it's: £5.74) - what does it mean? These dentist practices must pay this money to appear in the paid results. They have a budget for advertising. What you can offer to them? I am really successful with Facebook Advertising which is highly targeted. At the same time, you can sell setting up Facebook landing page, building a social media strategy for them, to name a few...

Step 4.
Doing the work - outsourcing

1. Always build the strategy for the client, brainstorm some ideas
2. Make a plan - you need to know what to do every day; your client also should know, what you can provide to them
3. Ideally make also publishing calendar, so you know exactly what kind of content should be posted and when?
4. Use social media management tools, which allow you to schedule posts; I do it week by week, however I check accounts every day in order to respond to comments, retweet, share some useful and interesting content, etc.
I love these ones:
HootSuite - Social Media Dashboard for Teams using Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin
BrandChirp | Twitter Marketing | Social Media Marketing
MarketMeSuite - Free
5. Find a VA - I outsource my entire team in Phillipinnes (I highly recommend craigslist and odesk). Always test you new contractor before hiring them full-time. Give them some small task to complete, ie. set up social media profiles and find appropriate content which may be posted there. Check what kind of experience they've got, if they received any feedback from previous employers, etc.

Step 5.
Nuts & Bolts

Ensure that you have everything in place. You cannot have a mess.
- During the initial consultation get from the client all existing profiles, websites and passwords
- Start a client folder (with all documents, graphics, invoices, reports, etc.)
- Discuss with the clients their goals and measurable targets
- Clarify expectations
- Make a management plan
- Ensure you signed a contract, where is described how and when you will be paid, what work is required.

Ok my Friends, that's my personal blueprint, that's exactly how I started. This blueprint works extremely well for me and I hope it will help you as well.

If you love social media, go for it, share the love with other business owners, as it's a great way of growing a business, building a reputation and increasing profits The businesses who embraced social media, won

Good Luck!
Dominica

P.S. Please let me know what you think about my plan of attack and the pro's might add a couple of tips

And I apologize for all spelling and grammar mistakes ...