Social Media Consulting

What Is a Social Media Consultant?
A social media consultant is responsible for helping businesses and brands optimize their social media strategy and marketing. They help their clients increase engagement, boost brand awareness and drive traffic to business websites. They specialize in social media strategy and planning. They also advise clients on how to make the right social media choices for lead generation and marketing. Social media consultants can work on a contract or project-to-project basis.

As a social media consultant, you will be expected to enhance a company's brand management and customer engagement. The duties can include:

• Creating social media strategies
• Developing content for social media
• Posting content to social media
• Monitoring social media profiles
• Replying customers messages and comments
• Researching competition
• Recommending improvements and optimization
• Integrating SEO content on a client's social media pages
• Collaborating with influencers
• Researching competition
• Understanding clients target audience
• Staying up to date with trends

What Does a Social Media Consultant Do?

As I already mentioned, a social media consultant is responsible for growing their clients online presence and creating brand awareness across multiple social media platforms. Depending on the client, you might be expected to produce and publish content. Social media consultants create strategies that help brand management and customer engagement. Good social media consultants stay up to date with trends and integrate these to drive traffic to social media profiles or websites. They are able to research and interpret data to better their customers marketing ROI (return on investment).

Pros Of Becoming a Social Media Consultant

• Be you own boss
• Work from home
• Choose clients you prefer
• Choose a niche you enjoy working with

Cons Of Becoming a Social Media Consultant

• Unstable salary
• High expectations
• Competition
• Administrative tasks

The Skills to Become a Successful Social Media Consultant

As a social media consultant, your clients expect you to be an expert in all various social media platforms. Before you acquire your first client, make sure you understand your duties fully. Take time to study and learn everything there is about social media marketing. Cultivate your skills, so both you and your clients have a positive experience. Here’s a list of some of the skills that you need to focus on to build a successful social media consultant business:

• Communication
• Social media skills
• SEO
• Creativity 
• Data analysis
• Project management
• Conversion
• Optimization
• Trends 
• Branding

Pick Your Niche

The social media business has many components and niches. Hence, many social media consultants select a niche to focus on. They provide specialized knowledge and services in one area of social media marketing to their clients. For example, one may choose to specialise in social media content creation if they’re creatively minded. While another may pick digital strategy and marketing due to their skills in planning. Do not try to master all areas in the industry. It can become an overwhelming responsibility. It's essential to your business that you focus on delivering excellent results that will gain you more clients. Here’s a few niches you can consider:

• Social media consulting
• Content strategy
• Marketing
• Graphic design
• Copywriting
• Content creating
• Digital marketing
• Account creation and set-up
• Publishing content
• Researching trends
• Providing coaching 
• Social media management
• Rebranding

Gain Experience

Before you get hired as a social media consultant, gain a certain amount of experience. Make sure you are comfortable and that you are confident in your skills. Starting a social media career is a gradual process that will no come without obstacles. Although, some social media consultant jobs may be available for newbies, some employers may prefer you have a certain level of experience in your niche before hiring you. For example, if you want to become a social media consultant with expertise in marketing, working as a marketer can help you gain valuable experience that will give you an advantage into that consulting position.

Freelance marketplaces like Freelancer, Upwork, and Fiverr give you a great way to gain experience while finding your niche. You can find projects that will help you get started and work on your skills, while building your portfolio.

Networking

A great tool to ensure yourself a successful business with the social media industry is networking. Both online and in person. Build relationships with others that can help you build up a client following. Join groups and forums. Share your expertise and learn from others. Start making real connections as early as you can. Building a client base takes time. Surrounding yourself with professionals in your industry will show to be very beneficial for your career. These connections you build can help increase your client following and provide valuable knowledge from industry professionals. You might also discover job opportunities through network connections. You can even create your own blog to gain attraction to your persona. Here are some benefits of networking:

• Support from like-minded people
• Valuable knowledge
• Learn about the industry
• Stay up to date with trends
• Find job opportunities
• Promote your services
• Brand yourself
• Develop social skills

Build A Portfolio

As soon as you start your social media consulting journey, make sure you have your eye on building a strong portfolio. Doing some free work to get a strong testimonial or review is worth considering. Compile your work in a portfolio. A portfolio helps potential clients learn more about your experience and your personal service. A portfolio builds trust. Your portfolio is what will convince potential clients to hire you ahead of your competitors. Be sure to include case studies and select content that promotes your abilities best. Be creative when it comes to displaying your case studies and asking for testimonials. A unique portfolio will grab a potential clients attention.

Set Your Rate

Depending on your experience and portfolio you can charge clients anywhere between $50 and $100 per hour as a freelance social media consultant. As a social media consultant you can set your own prices or negotiate fair rates with your clients. You can also come up with monthly packages that can be customized to include additional services at an extra cost. To stay within a reasonable price range, consider your years of experience. I would advice you to start low, and then, once you have an established portfolio, you might charge $100 per hour for your services. Also, the amount of money you make depends on how many clients and projects you have. Don’t take on too much work at a time. This will ruin your business. Only take on the amount of jobs and projects you are certain to complete in a manner that’s satisfying to your clients and yourself. Scale your business as you go along. Start with just a few projects and expand your offerings as you gain more experience.

Outsourcing Your Work

Once, you start working for more clients than you can handle by yourself, start outsourcing your work. Don’t try to do it all by yourself. If you’ve made it to this point, just be glad. You have a business. It’s time to think big. It’s time to hire other freelancers to help you take your business to the next level. This way you will get a lot more done and ultimately deliver better results, get better testimonials, and more clients. 

Finding freelancers who you can outsource work to is easy with platforms such as Fiverr and UpWork. Make a good job post and invite freelancers to apply. Establish good connections with remote workers that can help you build your consulting business. This will free up some time for you to familiarize yourself with your client's needs and requirements. Your clients will have a better experience with your service. This will lead to better reviews and testimonials on your portfolio, which eventually will build trust and demonstrate your skills and quality to future clients.