What Does a Social Media Manager Do?

Do you spend a lot of time on social media? Then you might make the perfect social media manager, right? While this isn’t always the case, social media management can be a great work from home job for the right person. 

However, this job involves much more depth than just browsing on social media sites throughout the day. If you want to find out if social media management is an ideal work from home job for you, follow this post, as I explain what a social media manager does and how to get started. 

What Does a Social Media Manager Do?

Social media is an exceptional tool for businesses of all sizes. It can be used to market, advertise, and build brand awareness along with a loyal customer base. This is where the role of a social media manager comes into play. 

If you’ve ever wondered, ‘What does a social media manager do?’ or ‘How can I make this a flexible part- or full-time job for myself?’ you’re not alone.

A social media manager represents a business or brand across all of their social channels. The job may involve tasks like:

• Planning content
• Scheduling posts
• Creating promotions or campaigns
• Interacting with followers or responding to comments
• Responding to private messages and inquiries
• Developing and managing social media ad campaigns
• Tracking and analyzing growth

You may work across many different platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, etc. Or, you could just be working on a single platform.

You can often do the bulk of your work remotely, and depending on who you’re working for, you may be able to set your own schedule. Most social media content and ads often don’t go live in real-time. 

Someone often schedules the content to go out at a specific time in advance. There are a few tools that can help with this, and I’ll mention them in just a bit. Being able to schedule out content in advance means you have more control over when you work, whether you want to do tasks at 8 a.m., 3 p.m., or 2 a.m. 

Why Do People Hire Social Media Managers?

Running a social media page is hard work and can be pretty time-consuming. Bloggers, influencers, businesses, and entrepreneurs all want to grow their social presence, but they may not have the bandwidth to do it. 

Hiring a social media manager takes this task off their plate while allowing them to put out consistent content, grow their followers and engagement, and better market their products and services to a loyal customer base.

Tools and Experience You Might Need 

A social media manager needs to have a laptop or computer and a stable internet connection. Most of us have a smartphone, which comes in handy to see how content looks from a mobile app instead of a laptop view. Most users are viewing social media content from their mobile devices, so this is important. 

When it comes to experience, you don’t need a marketing degree to become a social media manager. You do need to know how different platforms work. This means you should have a solid understanding of how to post a story on Instagram or use hashtags on Twitter. 

It will also help if you learn how to use different social media tools and software that makes your job easier. For example, Buffer and Social Bee are great 3rd party social media scheduling tools. If you’ll be scheduling pins for Pinterest, you’ll want to know how to use Tailwind. When planning Instagram content, you can use tools like Planoly or Later.

A good social media manager should also be organized and be able to develop systems to help track and monitor each client’s social media account. If you’re going to provide monthly progress reports, you’ll have to develop a system to measure essential growth factors and decide how you’ll present it each month. 

Another significant aspect of this role is a willingness to continue learning and adapting. Social media is constantly changing, and platforms are always updating their algorithms. It’s crucial that you stay on top of the changes and are open to learning new strategies.

How Much Can You Make? 

According to Glassdoor, the average social media manager earns $50,000 per year, working full time. What you make will depend on who you work with, what type of work you do, and how often you work. 

Remember, you can choose to specialize in managing one or two social platforms. Or you can help clients manage their entire social media presence and even run Facebook and Instagram ads. 

There’s plenty of room to diversify your service offerings and increase your rates. 

How Do You Find Work?

So how do you find work as a social media manager? One of the easiest places to find social media jobs is on job boards. However, these jobs may not be remote, and they may require anywhere from 1-3 years of experience.

Realize that there are other ways to get into this field if you are looking for flexible social media work. You can start by reaching out to local entrepreneurs and small business owners to see if they need help with their social media accounts. 

Send them a proposal of content and promotions you can help them create or offer to help them respond to comments and messages. 

My friend Sarah loves Instagram, so she started her own social media management business specializing in this platform. Sarah is a single mom who started her business to find a flexible way to earn money doing something she enjoys. She managed to earn $68,000 as a social media manager in 2016, and her revenue keeps climbing. 

It may be challenging to start out as a social media manager if you don’t have any experience, but you can enter the social media industry in a few other ways.

Companies That Hire for Social Media Management

If you’re looking to work from home as a social media manager and want to start gaining experience quickly, there are a few sites you may want to consider checking out.

These companies already have social media clients and may hire you as a contractor or employee to help provide a quality service to their clients. 

• 99 Dollar Social – This company offers a flexible work-from-home position where you’ll find content to share on clients’ social media platforms. How often you work depends on how many assignments you have. Work is due weekly, and you’ll have to pass an assessment to start.
• Appen Social Media Evaluator – Appen hires social media evaluators and typically pays around $13 per hour.
• Belay Solutions – Belay Solutions hires social media strategists and virtual assistants to work on a contract basis.
• ModSquad – ModSquad hires people to moderate social media groups and online forums.
• ZipRecruiter
• FlexJobs

Related Content: How To Turn Your Love of Social Media into a Thriving Online Business

Conclusion

Becoming a social media manager can be a great fit for someone who enjoys using social media and is willing to use it strategically to help clients grow their platforms. You can often work from anywhere and set your own schedule.

And as a bonus, you don’t need a degree or a ton of experience to land work. Odds are, you may know a local business or blogger that could use some social media help to get you started. Or, you can find leads using one of the links mentioned above. 

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