Let’s talk about if becoming a social media manager is worth wild as a side hustle for my fellow dads out there. The way I judge if a side hustle is worth my time is simple, can I make money, and is the money worth the time investment. I will say up front that becoming a social media manager is a great source of side income. So as a dad I wanted to share dads guide to becoming a social media manager.
Why is Being a Social Media Manager a Good Side Hustle for a Dad
Being a social media manager is the perfect side hustle for dads. For one thing, you can work around your own hours. That means no more missed bedtimes or soccer games. And since you can do most of the work from home, you can still be around your family while you’re hustling.
Plus, it’s a great way to bond with your wife. After all, nobody knows your brand better than she does. And if you’ve got kids, they can even help out. In my case, my daughter loves creating graphics and Therefore helps me create the image for posts. So not only is being a social media manager a great way to make some extra cash, but it’s also a great way to spend more time with the people you love.
How much money does a social media manager make
When I first started I read all of the statistics and took classes saying that a social media manager makes anywhere from 50k to 1,500 per month per client. It sounded too good to be true so I decided to give it a try. What I have found in my 2 years of being a social media manager is that I make on average 500 per month per client.
Now I understand that there is much more money to be made and I realize the 1,500 per client is achievable. I have just found that for the amount of time I put into it 500 per month is a good deal for my clients and myself. In truth, I have had clients that paid much more than 500, and I have had clients that paid me in trade.
Currently, I have 4 clients and after my expenses, I make around 1,900 per month. For how long it takes me I would estimate I may spend 40 hours per week working on these accounts. Therefore I am making around $47.50 per hour of work.
How does a Social Media Client Pay in Trade
When you’re first starting out as a social media manager, you’re not going to have a lot of clients lining up to pay you. In fact, most of your early clients will be on very tight budgets. When I first started out, my first client was a dance studio. My girls wanted to join dance classes, but I didn’t want to pay for them at the time.
So I contacted the studio and convinced them to give me free dance classes for my girls in exchange for me managing their social media and marketing. It was a great trade-off: I got to add my first client to my portfolio, and my girls got the dance classes they wanted. So although I didn’t make any money from the client, I did get a good trade-off.
How much should I charge to run an Instagram?
When you are trying to figure out a price for a client you need to understand what they want you to do. How many posts do they want per week? Will they expect you to handle the communication on their account when people contact them? How much time will you be spending per month to be social on the platform and grow the account?
In general, I charge around 250 per month to manage an Instagram account. This is enough for me to schedule 5 posts per week and spend a few minutes per weekday interacting and gaining followers. It comes out to around 25 to 30 per hour of pay. If they want you to do more than I have listed just add your price per hour to the bill.
What qualifications do you need to be a social media manager
None is the very simple answer. When you are trying to find clients they are looking for price and portfolio. There are certificates you can get to make yourself more marketable but in truth, I have not found this to affect the outcome of gaining a client.
How do I become a social media manager with no experience
The hardest part of becoming a social media manager is getting started and finding your first client. Just like anything else the key is to start talking to people and sell yourself. When my little girls were young they woke up one day and decided they wanted to start going to a dance studio.
As I was looking at the prices and trying to figure out which school to send them to I noticed one studio did not have great social media. I reached out to them asking about classes and in the back and forth conversations I brought up that their social media was behind their competitors.
I told them my monthly rate was the same as theirs to teach my girls. I ended up working out a trade. They would let me girls dance for free and I would manage their social media. In the end, this client led to my first paying client who was a dancewear store owner.
Since then I have learned there are many ways to get your first client and the one I would recommend to get started is www.upwork.com . I have found many clients from their service and it is very easy to work with. If you need a step by step guide to using Upwork I will write a guide and link it here soon.
What does a social media manager do all day
Usually, I am watching TV and half paying attention to my computer but this isn’t a good way to get things finished quickly. The activities I do daily are:
- Check accounts for messages / comments and reply when needed
- Validate my scheduled post and ensure they post as planned
- Spend time on each account commenting, following, liking, and interacting with people to help grow the accounts.
- Create the posts for next week
- Find new clients
Is being a social media manager hard?
Social media companies want everyone on their platforms. Therefore it is very easy to manage accounts for people. Once you have researched the client and understand your target market, the rest is just posting and socializing. There are two tools I would recommend that you look into if you are going to become a social media manager.
The first is Social Pilot which gives you one place to manage all of your client’s accounts. You can schedule all of their posts for the week and won’t need to sign in to each client’s account individually.
There are many of these types of programs like Hootsuite and Buffer. They are all very similar but the reason I recommend Social Pilot is that they allow you more accounts linked and at a lower price and they offer an affiliate program. So be sharing your link like I did above they will pay you a commission. If you get 3 people to sign up over time your account will pay for itself.
The second tool you will need is canva.com . This site will be something you use every single day as a social media manager. You can create graphics for posts in a matter of minutes. You can even do it on your phone.
Once I started using canva.com I stopped opening Photoshop altogether. It is just too simple and effective for what you need. They do not have an affiliate program but if you share your link and people sign up you can gain free stock photos to use.
How many hours a week does a social media manager work?
It takes me about an hour per week to create and schedule posts for each client. I will also spend roughly 30 mins to an hour per day socializing to grow the accounts. So in general I would say maybe 14 hours or less per client each month. Some of this time can be shortened when you do multiple clients.
For when you are creating a post I find that it takes me 1 hour for the first client but it doesn’t take as long for each additional client. I think its because you develop specific keywords you are going after and you can create two or three posts in the same time it takes to create one.
Is social media management a good career?
I would say that being a social media manager is a great freelance side hustle. I wouldn’t put all of my eggs into this basket and call it a career. I learned when COVID hit that social media managers are one of the first things to get cut when times get tough.
On the other hand, you can establish a solid digital management and services company but I would include more than just social media management.
**UPDATE** After Covid
I wanted to add a paragraph here because when I wrote this blog post my social media business had taken a pretty big dip due to COVID and a lot of the small businesses reducing their marketing and I wanted to update where I was now that we are for the most part past Covid.
Just as fast as the virus forced small businesses to reduce marketing money, it has come back just as fast. So at one point before the virus, I was managing around 10 clients because it was all that I could handle on my own.
During the virus, I was down to 2 clients at one point. I had to reduce my fees on both of them to keep them. In the end, it was well worth it because It kept me making side money while I was stuck at home with everyone else.
Fast forward to now which is about a year after I originally wrote this post and I will say not only have I gotten back to where I was, I have been able to hire someone to help me with the number of clients I am managing now.
Is social media manager a real job
I saw this question on google and I had to think about what makes something a real job. Companies will pay people real money to manage their social media.
So if someone paying you to do something equals a real job then the answer is yes. Some companies do have full time employees who manage their social media but this isn’t something I was looking for and never pursued. I like to make money on the side, I already have a real job.
For someone looking for a real job as a social media manager, you should start looking at marketing in general. Social media is only a small piece of the puzzle for most companies. On the other, if you can provide a company with a full marketing plan and help them by handling all the pieces you will be able to get a full time job as a marketer.
What are the downsides of social media
The biggest downside of social media is you are not the owner of the accounts. What I mean by this is that the companies who own the platforms can change the rules whenever they want.
For example, there was a time when if you had a few thousand followers on Facebook a vast number of people who follow your page would see your post. Now many years later it’s as low as 1%.
Also at any time, you could lose access to your accounts. Then all of the followers you worked so hard to get are gone and you have no way to communicate with them. This is the reason that having your own mailing list and website will always be a good idea.
The final and most important downside of social media for me is that you have to keep grinding to get a return. Unlike SEO where if you put in the work you can get free traffic for years to come, social media requires you to constantly keep posting…. I guess that’s a good reason to be a social media manager.
Which social media makes the most money
Each social media platform is focused on different markets. For example, Linkedin is for business to business. On the other hand, Pinterest is focused on women and therefore has a majority women client base. As a social media manager, all of the platforms are similar.
Using the tools like Social Pilot they all take the same amount of time to schedule posts. The only real difference you will need to learn is how to grow accounts of each type. Facebook is now more about joining groups and talking to people so they know you are an authority for whatever topic they are looking for.
Twitter and Instagram are more about hashtags and constantly liking and commenting. In the end, for me, they all make the same money for about the same time.
Tip to Find New Clients
There are many ways to find new clients for your social media management business. You can reach out on Linkedin, create a website, word of mouth, etc. What I recommend when you are first starting out is to try Upwork. If you would like to read our other blog on how Upwork works check it out HERE.
Conclusion
If you want to make 1,000 per month on the side becoming a social media manager may be a great side hustle for you. It’s very easy to learn and you are not required to have any certificates or degrees. Most companies understand the need to have a social media account and most of them neglect theirs.
So you can easily find potential new clients. There are many freelance job sites to help get you started. The one piece of advice I will give about being a social media manager is to not over-promise what you are going to do and then underperform. This is a surefire way to not develop long term clients.
Furthermore, make sure when you find your first clients both them and you understand what they expect. Some clients want unreasonable outcomes when they hire you and then are upset when you don’t perform. So it’s very good to establish upfront what will be expected.
This will help you over-perform and keep clients coming back. Plus it will keep you from wasting your time doing things they are not expecting and then missing the mark on things they want.
