In a recent report , over 90% of surveyed businesses used social media marketing and one-third of these businesses said that social media helped them make sales. Other advantages of social media marketing reported by these businesses include an increase in web traffic and sales leads, a rise in search engine rankings and a drop in marketing expenses. As you can see, this business idea is hot right now and there’s no better time to jump in and help struggling businesses take advantage of this technology.
Effective social marketing is becoming increasingly critical for every business and organization. The problem is that few organizations do it well. Many, if not most, business owners and executives are entrenched in yesterday's marketing models. Few executives or leaders truly understand the social media phenomenon and how to use it effectively for marketing.
Social media marketing, if it is to be effective, requires a significant and continuing investment of time. Effective social media marketing requires maintaining a consistent presence with a consistent voice in multiple social media venues. Effective social media marketing also requires constantly monitoring the social Web for feedback about the organization or business, their competitors, and the industry as a whole. Further, social media is continually evolving with services emerging and disappearing each year. In other words, effective social media marketing is a lot of work.
This situation creates an ideal opportunity for those who do understand social media to offer social marketing services to these organizations and businesses. Social marketing can be an ideal home-based business. This business can also be started on a shoestring budget.
The United States Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) compiles occupational projections data on many occupations. Unfortunately, BLS does not differentiate between "marketing managers" and those who primarily work in social media marketing. Social media marketing is becoming an increasingly important component of marketing, and those who do social media marketing well tend to specialize in this social media.
BLS does compile occupational data for marketing managers though. According to the data there were 175,600 marketing manager jobs in the USA during 2008. This number is expected to increase by 21,900 over the decade from 2008 - 2018. This would represent and increase of 12.5 percent. BLS reports that 4.1 percent of marketing managers are self-employed. Nearly 60,000 marketing manager jobs are expected to be available over the next decade due to growth and the need for replacement workers. BLS reports that marketing managers typically earn "very high" median annual wages of $108,580.
Getting Started
It should go without saying that you need to have a strong social media presence yourself before you begin offering social media marketing services to others. This is true for several reasons. First, it will be difficult to convince potential customers that you can handle their social media marketing needs if you do not have a social media presence yourself. Second, you will need this platform of an existing social media presence to build your business.
What You Need
- Experience with social networks and some marketing experience would be beneficial
- Computer
- Internet access
- An Email Account
- Financial software
Cautions
Social marketing is a rapidly evolving business. Social media changes rapidly and it can be challenging to stay abreast of the latest technologies and services. The service that was the latest and greatest last year may well be eclipsed by a new media service this year, and forgotten altogether by next year.
Mistakes and failures in a social media world can go viral in an instant. A poorly written blog post, status update or tweet may continue to haunt a social marketer for a very long time.
Many companies and organizations still do not understand how rapidly and dramatically the world of communication is changing. Social media marketers understand that successful marketing is now about building relationships with customers rather than selling to customers. Sales still need to happen, but sales happen because of a successful relationship. Social media marketing is an essential part of this relationship between businesses and customers. This lack of understanding by executives and business leaders may require the social media marketer to also be an educator.
What And How To Charge
People are much more comfortable with flat rates than they are with hourly or per-item, per-service type charges. So you might want to set up some "product-based" services that small business folks could wrap their heads around. For example you could charge $X amount for "Y" services. And I would focus on a niche like LOCAL set ups or just GOOGLE PLACES or FACEBOOK set ups or something niche-y, especially at the beginning.
Think about the service you're providing. Will you be setting up accounts for folks, or writing daily tweets / posts, or getting more followers, or reporting on the people seeing / reacting to your social marketing?
LOCAL -- Setting up and claiming Google Local accounts and monitoring reviews is a HUGE opportunity. Look at Google HOTPOT for all the businesses with unclaimed profiles. I read somewhere that it was 55 million business who haven't done that yet... Super easy to do. Some folks get $500 for setting up and then $100 a month or more for monitoring reviews. And that's LOW END.
For example, have a month to month package which includes setting up a social campaign with x monthly posts which you write out daily posts (and the owner approves). Maybe throw in "reputation monitoring" to show any mentions of company/events, as well as responses to mentions. Folks ALSO like reporting on a monthly basis to show mentions, retweets, followers, clicks on links, conversions from social media, etc.
FACEBOOK -- Or have a flat rate package to set up a FACEBOOK PROFILE using the owner's facebook account, pimp it out, and post the same info on Facebook feed using one of the programs to send out info at regular intervals...
TWITTER -- same thing.
MySpace - ditto
PRICING
It would be a good idea to start out with some $97 lite set-up packages to get some "success stories..." Or even freebies since at first your only costs are your time.
Once you have some success under your belt, THEN figure out what you want to take home an hour (?$25 - $50), estimate monthly time to do the work, DOUBLE that to cover the REAL amount of time it's going to take, then multiply THAT times 3 to get the "retail" price to cover the overhead (new Mac, etc), time spent selling, running reports, and other administrative stuff.
Track your time to reconcile ACTUAL time on campaigns to paid time on campaigns...
What Do Social Media Marketing Service Business Owner Do?
Your day will begin with a check of Facebook, Twitter and any other blogs you and your clients are involved with. You will monitor and record any comments and follow up on any message board threads your company has an interest in. You will search for individuals and businesses to follow and become fans of. You will spend a portion of your day marketing your own business, which you can also do on social media networks. You will also market on different industry websites and in publications. If you have a staff working for you, you will coordinate their efforts and check in on their progress.
Besides carrying out a social marketing campaign (your primary servide), you could also offer consulting services that would analyze a company’s current social media presence and offer recommendations for ways to improve their marketing efforts.
About Your Customers
Your customers will be business owners and marketing managers of both small and large firms who need your expertise and recommendations on how to better their businesses using social media.
Advantages Of Starting A Social Marketing Sevice Business
- This type of service is in very high demand today.
- You can easily run this business part-time and from home.
- This is a great way to stay current with the latest social network inner-workings.
- It is rewarding to help businesses become more successful.
- Your schedule is flexible; you don’t have to work regular business hours.
Disdvantages Of Starting A Social Marketing Sevice Business
- You may find yourself working irregular hours to stay on top of the social network scene.
- You will need to get a few small clients on your list before any larger firms will hire you to handle their social media.
Marketing Your Social Marketing Business
Marketing a home based social marketing service business may take a direct approach or an indirect approach. Both approaches have their place and both are probably essential. Focusing on a particular niche or area of business may be beneficial.
Direct marketing for your social media marketing business may involve "cold calling" potential customers, explaining how your services can help them, and asking for their business. Preliminary research before making cold calls would reveal whether the business or organization had an active social media presence. If the business or organization did not already have a discoverable presence, the conversation could focus on helping them to establish and effective, discoverable presence. If the business or organization already has a social media presence, the conversation could focus on how their presence could be expanded and improved.
Indirect marketing could involve maintaining a blog about social media marketing and the industries that you serve, contributing essays or guest posts to other sites, and participating in forums on social media marketing or the industries that you serve. These types of activities serve to increase awareness of your business and can increase the value of your brand. Over time, being recognized as an authority in your area of expertise can bring customers to you simply because you are recognized as an expert or an authority.
A business website is also an obvious and crucial part of any social media marketing business. A business website allows you to present information about your qualifications and references, services your business offers, industry news, and details about how your business can help a potential customer to maximize their social media presence.
Conclusion
Social media marketing is a new industry, but this business is ideal for a home-based business. Since this business can be started with only a computer with Internet access, this business can truly be started on a shoestring budget.
Additional Resources
Word Of Mouth Marketing Association
International Social Media Association
List of Major Social Networking Sites
Good Luck With Your Social Marketing Service Business, and don't forget to have fun with it.
Until Tomorrow,
Terry
