How To Start A Social Media Management Business

If you’ve had the idea of starting your own social media management business but aren’t sure where to start, we can help! $99 Social has a reseller program that allows you to white label our services and sell them as your own. Cool, right? Maximize your time by focusing on working with and educating your clients while we do the time-consuming part of creating posts and advertisements for them. Let me walk you through how it works and the other considerations you need to keep in mind as you get your business put together.

Your Social Media Management Website

The very first thing you’ll need is a website. There are more qualified web designers on places like Fiverr and Upwork than you can shake a stick at. Be sure to look at examples of their previous work and their reviews before you hire anyone. Here are some of the things you (and your web designer) need to consider about your website:

• It needs to be visually captivating. This is going to be the first point of contact for most of your potential customers, and they will automatically relate the visuals on your site to what you can do for them.
• Your branding needs to be consistent across the whole site, and your own social media accounts too!
• The written content needs to be 100% grammatically correct, easy to read, and personable. Be sure to write in a conversational way to draw your clients in when they’re reading your story.
• Mobile responsiveness… Most people will be looking at your site on their mobile devices, so it needs to be just as beautiful and captivating there as it is on PC browsers.
• Show samples and links to your work. This can include your own social media! Have you done a guest blog somewhere? Link to it! You’ll be amazed how much of YOU there is out there to show off!
• It must be easy for users to navigate. This means simple menus and a clear path from your content to hiring you as their social media manager.
• Have links and icons leading to your social media accounts. You want to make it as easy as possible for people to find you online.

I can’t stress enough the importance of having a gorgeous website that is easy to use and shows off your skills. My last tip? Avoid busyness. Having loads of information crammed into a small space or lots of flashing, spinning graphics is very 2005 and will turn visitors away. Clean, minimal, and well-organized is the standard in today’s web design best practices.

Develop A Niche

What are your personal interests and passions? Do you love cars? Crafts? Beauty products? Whatever it is, you can carve out a comfortable corner of the market for yourself by specializing in a specific industry. Some people shy away from this and try to be as broad and general as they can to reach the maximum amount of people. However, this tactic also means you are competing with every other ‘general’ marketing agency. When you develop a niche, you can more effectively target potential clients and you have less competition for those clients. Think about it this way... How many marketing agencies are there specifically for beekeepers? Not many. Those clients would be very easy to find, and you would be able to offer them services specifically tailored for them and their industry.When you make it something you are personally passionate about, it will show in your work. It also means that it’s something you have a lot of knowledge about already. Leverage your hobbies and interests to build your business!

Your Social Media Management Services

You should be offering your clients every service you possibly can. The wider the variety of services you provide, the more people you can reach. Aside from SEO services and reputation management, there are lots of other services you can offer:

• Custom images or image overlays
• Blog creation
• Advertising (as in Facebook ads for example)
• Daily posting to their social accounts

We can help you with all of those! When you partner with $99 Social, you’ll greatly expand the types of services you can offer your clients. We are here to help you build your social media management business!You can also draw people in with a free consultation and analysis. This is key to attracting clients because it allows you to give them an accurate idea of exactly how you can help them. Review their website and social feeds, then provide a report of how you can improve their online presence. You can even include an analysis of their online reputation by searching out what people are saying about them on social media!Take another look at the list in the section above about your website. This is a great base to start with reviewing and analyzing your client’s sites. Everything that we’re recommending for your website and your services should apply to your client’s business as well!If you don’t feel like you have skills in a few of these areas, that’s OK! There are a plethora of learning materials out there for you that require little to no investment. Not comfortable creating images and graphics for your clients? Take a course from Canva! You can also turn to YouTube to help fill in any skill gaps you may have. Offering educational services is another area you can expand into. For example, many of your clients may not understand the importance of using high-quality images on their websites and socials. You can show them what works and what doesn’t. Develop relationships with local photographers you can refer your clients to in order to help them up their game online. The more you can help them be successful, the more successful you will be. Always try to think outside the box on ways you can help them build their business.

Got Blog?

Having a blog on your site is a must. This gives you the opportunity to showcase your expertise and develop your authority as a social media manager. It also is a great way to optimize your website with SEO. When you have interesting and helpful information available, you will organically draw traffic in from the search engines.Try to aim for 2-4 blog articles a month. Having a regular supply of fresh blogs shows interested clients that you are active and working hard to provide your services. It also gives you the chance to keep the information you’re offering up to date and current. In the world of online marketing, things change rapidly. Keep on top of trends and news in your niche! Every blog post doesn’t need to relate directly to what you do. The potential clients in your niche want information about things that matter to them too! When you focus on providing value instead of spamming content about how great your services are, you’ll develop a loyal following.For example, if you specialize in marketing for pet-based businesses, look for things to write about that your clients would find helpful. Was there a major dog show lately? Cover it in a blog! Did a local vet in your area win an award? Showcase them! You get the idea. You can translate this to any industry. As a bonus, this will also help draw in clients that may not even be looking for social media management services!This is also an important service to offer your clients. As much as having your own blog will help you, it will help your clients too! Show them the hows and whys of blogging. Blogs are a lot of work, but they’re worth it. If you don’t have the time to write your own blog, much less write blogs for your clients, we offer a blog service that you can white label as your own. Be sure to ask about it when you reach out to get started with our reseller program!

Gather Reviews (And Use Them!)

Reviews show potential clients that you have some experience. Even if you’re just starting out and don’t have any ‘real’ clients yet, go to anyone you’ve ever helped with their social media and see if they’d be willing to write you a short review. Wrote a post for your neighbor to help them sell something on Facebook? Showed your mom how to do something on Twitter? You get the idea! These are all valid sources for getting your first reviews.You should also make it easy for clients to leave reviews. Many consumers won’t deal with a business that doesn’t have any reviews at all, and they make great fodder for social media posts! You can also include a link to your Google reviews in your email campaigns. Have an automatic email go out to clients after you get started with them asking how their experience has been and if they’d be willing to write a review.

Start Local

When you’re starting out, small businesses in your area are a great way to go. This can help you build up your client list (and reviews!) so that you can establish yourself for a larger audience online in other geographic areas.Reach out to local businesses in your niche and pitch your services to them. Be sure to have a portfolio of your work to share during this process. No one understands the difficulties of the ‘getting started’ phase better than locally owned small businesses, so be sure to leverage this aspect and back it up with examples of your work. If you’re uncomfortable with cold calling or visiting these businesses in person, you can always start out with an email. Be friendly and personable, and don’t forget to share some of your story with them. Be careful here though. Don’t overdo it. Brevity is a skill that will benefit you greatly in this business. If you have a business relationship with anyone in your area, use this! Even if they aren’t specific to your niche, they may be able to direct you to others that would be interested in your services. They might also be willing to provide a review for you if you’ve helped them in any way. Your current network can be a hidden gold mine of leads!

Finding Success With Our Reseller Program

$99 Social should be your very first employee when you’re starting a social media management business! Social media can be extremely time-consuming and tedious, especially once you get more than one or two clients. It’s a lot for any one person to handle alone.The more of your services you can outsource, the more available and helpful you can be for your clients. That’s where we come in. When you sign up as a reseller, you’ll be able to offer every service we have to your clients. We’ll work with you and customize the content we create for them just like you would! Reach out today to learn more about how we can help you build your business (and your customer’s businesses as well).