How Can You Make Money as a Social Media Marketer?

Welcome to The Social Lab! This blog will not only help you navigate your personal social media, but also investigate marketing trends and examples of great social media work. Do you have something we should talk about? Make sure to send us an email or contact us on social media.

There are a lot of people out there that feel like they can make a lot of money through social media. Many of these people believe that their knowledge of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Etc. is at a high enough level to where they will make money. The fact is that social media marketing is a lot of work. Work that takes time, patience, and innovation. Here are some things you can do to put yourself in a great position when it comes to making money as a social media marketer.

Educate Yourself

Read as many books on social media marketing and marketing in general. No matter how great you think you are at social media, there are going to be people that know more. Social media is also an insanely fast growing field. There are new tools and even platforms that you will have to learn and adapt to.

Get Experience

If you don’t have a lot experience, work on your personal social media to start learning some of the skills you will need. You should really focus on content creation (copyrighting) and what each social media platform brings to the table. You can also begin to interact and engage with people on social media. Are you really interested in makeup? Then search makeup on Twitter and Instagram. Begin interacting with people that are influencers.

You can also intern or find a job. Running a business or brand account is different than your personal social media. You need to learn how to create content in different voices and also create reports for upper management.

Learn Online Tools

There are many online tools and apps that will help your social media marketing skills. Some like Hootsuite or CoSchedule are great for creating content calendars and monitoring specific topics. Others are great for building a following (be careful with these). You should also be versed in programs like Adobe Illustrator and Canva. Having some rudimentary graphic design skills is very helpful. Learn as many of these online tools as you can so you will have a leg up when it comes to finding work.

Find a Niche

Some people are amazing at social media analytics, some are amazing at creating creative content, some are great at paid media advertising. It is important to find a “concentration” per say that will give you a leg up when it comes to finding a job or being the best social media marketer you can be. This doesn't change the fact that you should still be the best you can be at every aspect of social media marketing, but having a special skill can be really beneficial.

Be Patient

Patience is very important in social media marketing. Not only do you need to be patient when attempting to find your dream job, but also when you are doing the work itself. A lot of social media marketing involves customer service, which means that you need to be empathetic and understanding of peoples comments. You also need to be patient when building up a social media account. DO NOT give into shady growth hacking tactics that involve insanely aggressive follow/unfollow strategies or spamming. Also, not every client you work for is going to be the most exciting, you have to deal with that in a professional way.

Conclusion

While these steps are basic, they are very important when it comes to creating the foundation for a successful career. We promise that the minute you begin to really get into social media management and marketing, you will realize the amount of time and work it takes to become great at it. Don't worry though...we have faith in you!

If you have any other questions about social media marketing, or have a different topic you want us to talk about, comment below or email us.