What Types of Services Could I Deliver as a Social Media Manager?

This list of 12 (plus 3 bonus services!) took our team years of experimenting, delivering and measuring to determine what businesses will consistently pay you for as a social media manager –month after month, year after year.  And we’re darn proud of the feedback from businesses that have worked with us since 2010 as well as the reviews from women we’ve trained to be independent social media managers.

Feel free to read through to get a sense of the services you will be qualified to deliver as a social media manager.  Remember, social media managers are specialized marketers — they are not broad generalists or jacks of all trades.  This variety of services are all within that speciality.  These services are intended to open your eyes to the knowledge and qualifications you can possess, not to make you feel like these are many different jobs.

Let this list spark your curiosity!  Feel free to mark it up!  Make notes, highlight and circle any of these services that pique your interest.  They are ALL possible for you to learn to build the flexible career you want.

• Social media strategy creation

Part of a strategy is determining what networks will work best for the business you are managing, based on its goals and brand.  Strategy involves frequency of posts, types of posts, and it takes into account big-picture marketing goals to get topics and messaging right.

• Social media network management

Let’s face it:  Social media changes often.  It’s up to a trained professional to keep her clients up-to-date with new features and template changes.

• Content creation

Time to put on your writing hat!  You’ll be crafting social media posts, SEO-rich blogs, meme creation and even videos for your client’s social networks. We will teach you to tell a story to your client’s customers. Don’t forget the upfront work of creating a content calendar that really resonates with your client and their brand.

• Content publishing/distribution

Once the content is written, it’s up to a social media professional to “get it out there!”  Publishing social media content seems easy because hey – it can be done from your phone!  But there is certainly strategy and professionalism involved in posting the content that makes your client stand out in the minds of their customers.

• Community building

This is often the first work that gets “shelved” by businesses trying to manage their own social media in-house.  They don’t spend the valuable time proactively reaching out to people and other brands they should be connected with on social media.   This is a really fun time for a social media professional to build their client’s following!

• Community management

This includes checking comments, likes, hearts, private inboxes, mentions, recommendation pages and more all in a timely manner.  Love a particular brand’s response on social media?  Credit that to an A+ job by the community manager.

• Online customer service

Whether a business delivers a service or sells a product, customers have questions and they will judge a business by how quickly and how well a customer service person responds on social media.

• Online review and reputation management

Just because it’s not Facebook, Twitter or Instagram doesn’t mean it’s NOT social media.  There are countless industry sites that allow users to leave reviews about individual businesses and you better believe those reviews ARE your clients’ online reputation.  Yelp might be the most mainstream, but many review sites exist based on the service (i.e. real estate, senior living, etc.) and will need your ongoing management to give clients piece of mind.

• Social media ads (Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest)

Conceptualizing, planning and executing a paid ad strategy is highly in demand and very useful.  It’s also important to have a social media professional closely manage on an ongoing basis.

• Text messaging campaigns & platform management

Texting is hugely impactful for businesses and automated online platforms make it attainable for even the smallest businesses to leverage text-based marketing.  This is an area a social media professional can help their clients of all sizes.

• Metrics tracking

This is one of the most important conversations you will have with a prospective client, a current client and a long-term client. Tracking ROI, explaining metrics and ensuring your client is seeing the value of having you as their social media professional is what separates the good from the great!

• Influencer & blogger campaigns

Connecting a client’s brand with influencers to spread the word is “social PR” that can deliver tremendous value to your client.  Furthermore, conceptualizing, planning and executing these campaigns can be a fun project with plenty of creative (and earning) potential.

• OTHER

1. Social media training

Businesses of every shape and size hire outside experts to train their teams how to use certain social networks better.  You could even be a social media “tutor” to people who want to better understand how to use social networks personally.

2. Social media consulting

Businesses may have internal employees they want to handle their social media; however, they may need advice, direction or a strategy to follow.

3. Social media speaking

Don’t let public speaking jitters rule out this viable option.  From chambers of commerce to student groups and business workshops, social media experts are in demand to help audiences learn new things about the ever-changing environment.  (Pro tip: It can be even better if you specialize in a network or two to deliver focused content to an audience.  Remember, this option can be done virtually or in-person.)

The Hay There Social Media INsider training (our 6-week proven training that gives women a transferrable skillset and credibility as a social media manager) teaches all of the services you have read.   Looking to dip your toe in the water?  Gain the credibility through our self-paced program called “Core Training Lite,” for the cost of a Costco run.

Schedule a call with us today to learn more about how you can begin delivering and specializing in these services for businesses.

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