Solopreneurs and freelance writers wear many hats — customer success manager, office administrator, sales manager, purchasing agent, bookkeeper, and more — and being the Chief Everything Officer isn’t easy.
In today’s business environment, one of the hats a freelancer wears is social media manager. Just as it is for any other business, social media can positively impact how your prospects perceive you, what projects you land, and how much money you make.
Now, it’s true that some freelance writers and copywriters make six-figure incomes without being active on social media. And that’s fantastic! You don’t need to do certain things to be successful as a freelance business.
There isn’t ONE blueprint for success, but many. And the best part about running your own business is that you can pick and choose from others’ blueprints and create an entirely new one. So, you do you!
Yet in my experience, social media can become a valuable asset your business can rely on for a long time.
Let’s see what being your own social media manager is all about!
What Does It Mean to Be Your Own Social Media Manager?
Here are the responsibilities of a social media manager (as per Forbes) and what they mean for a one-person business.
Plan and Develop a Social Media Campaign
Create a social media campaign and a social media strategy that defines ─
- Who ─ Who are you? How do you designate yourself? What are the words people use to describe what you do?
- Where ─ Which social media marketing channels would be best for you, given you have limited resources to spend on this activity?
- What ─ What do you offer? Which services do you want to market on social media?
- Why ─ Why are you the best person to offer this service? What makes you credible, believable, and trustworthy?
- Whom ─ Who are you trying to reach? Define your target audience.
Your social media campaigns will depend on any new service or cohort you launch. Typically, campaigns last anywhere from a month to a few quarters, depending on your goals for a particular service/product.
Create Compelling Content
To show up on social media is to post content consistently. And hey, consistency means a frequency you can sustain. Read my ideas on sustainable marketing for freelance writers.
And, let’s not reinvent the wheel when you can go build your content strategy in five steps using this piece and find out the five fears I had to face and beat so I could create content on LinkedIn.
Post Content as Per Schedule
For a one-person shop like most freelance writing businesses, what gets scheduled gets done. So, a social media manager/freelancer would need a schedule so social media efforts stay consistent and don’t fall apart in the long run.
Schedule a day every month to analyze results and tweak your social media strategy, a slot every week to create content, and a slot every day to post content and engage.
Engaging with Prospects on Channels
Simply posting content doesn’t suffice. To get people to engage with your content, you must initiate engagement with others in your network. Engagement activities include commenting on others’ content, messaging prospects, and responding to DMs to ensure you’re active in your network, improving your visibility, and maximizing your impact.
And some of your best content ideas will come from interacting with prospects and others in your network. Listen intently for content ideas!
Analyzing Results
I don’t analyze naturally, so I put time on my calendar (typically one day in a month) to analyze results from social media activities. These include checking how many followers I gained and the leads I generated from social media. Consider how much focus you put on the number of Likes, comments, and followers, as there are better metrics to track, especially on LinkedIn.
As a social media manager, your job is to determine if there is scope for improvement or change in your social media strategy to bring about better/different results.
Being on Top of Social Media Trends
As a freelancer, I focus less on social media trends and more on doing what I do best — creating content in a format and way that works for me. You can get lost following social media trends if trying new formats doesn’t come naturally to you.
However, if you focus on creating strategic content consistently, you will continually reap the rewards from social media marketing. Remember, the most important thing is to sustain your efforts, no matter how frequently you show up.
The Social Media Skills You Need
Sprout Social highlights the following skills to succeed as a social media marketer:
- Communication — Social media is all about communicating your ideas, services, and opinions in a way that educates, informs, or entertains your audience.
- Writing — You have a head start by being a writer! Copywriters and freelance writers can acutely channel their writing superpower to market their business on social media.
- Creativity — Can you scroll through social media, find content patterns, tweak them, and use them for your own marketing? Social media has a lot of room for creativity.
- Efficiency and organization — To win at social media as a one-person business, you need a system and schedule to keep you efficient and organized.
- Marketing know-how — Being a freelance writer, you can already articulate marketing messages and bring out the benefits of a service/product for a select audience.
- Building connections — Running a solo business teaches you to build and expand your network. This skill comes in handy when you market yourself on social media platforms.
- Agility — A social media strategy needs room for changes. For instance, when the pandemic hit, businesses had to trash their scheduled marketing messages and create different messaging to avoid being tone-deaf.
Social media success requires a certain kind of discipline, just like anything worth achieving. Create a strategy, routine, and discipline to leverage social media as an asset in your business.
Think Like a Social Media Manager
On days scheduled for social media management, don a specific uniform that reminds you of your role.
Let me explain… For over a year, when I started as a freelance writer, I’d wear a particular pair of glasses that made me look like a writer.
That way, I had donned the uniform of a writer, and now my task was to write. Can you wear a jacket, a pair of glasses, or maybe an actual hat that says ‘social media manager’ as a uniform? You’ve got permission to be creative here.
Try it out. Use a piece of clothing or accessory so whenever you put it on, you know you’re playing the role of a social media manager. This might feel a bit awkward the first few times. After that, you’ll see it works like magic to get you in the mindset of social media marketing.
You’re totally ready to be your own social media manager if you’ve made it so far. Remember, you’ve figured out 100% of the stuff you’ve bumped up against so far, including running a solo business. Now, take the next 15 minutes to schedule social media activities on your calendar. And you’re good to go.
