So, you want to manage social media? Great! You are not alone. There are over 2 billion people in this world with at least one social media account. Almost every person under the age of 30 has an online presence somewhere.

With that being said, there is already a professional social media manager position open in this area! The field of social media management is growing rapidly as companies realize how powerful it can be for their business.

If you are looking to make money via social media, then becoming a professional SMM (social media marketing) is definitely your best bet. Most positions are paid, so it is not too hard to start working in this field.

However, before you dive into the depths of social media management, here are some things you should know about the profession first.

Find a social media management company

Finding a good social media manager is like finding new pants- they are hard to come by! Luckily, it’s not too difficult to identify one, nor will you have trouble getting employment once you do. All professional social media managers must go through at least an additional two to four years of formal education after their undergraduate degree, so make sure to research that first.

Next, look for professionals with lots of glowing reviews or speak with those reviewers directly to find out more about the company. Simply going onto their website isn’t enough; instead, search sites such as Google and Yelp to see what people say about them. The same goes for looking into their past employees – does anyone seem happy?

Once you’ve gathered all the information, then decide if this person/company seems trustworthy and qualified.

Establish a contract with the social media management company

Now that you have your foot in the door, it is time to establish a contractual relationship with this new manager. Make sure to check out their LinkedIn profile, watch some of their videos or listen to an audio recording of them talking about services they offer.

This will give you the chance to see how professional they are and what types of clients they work with. Their tone should be professional and direct so pay close attention to that!

In addition to looking at their profile and listening to one of their podcasts, try asking them questions such as: “What would make us successful competitors?” or “How do we grow our follower base?”

The more prepared you are for these conversations, the better! You want to make sure you understand everything fully before agreeing to work together, especially since you will probably be paying for their service.

Produce content

A social media manager does not have to learn how to use all of the platforms themselves, but he or she must be able to produce quality content for at least one platform on the regular.

This could mean creating an article or video on your favorite site’s publication section, pinning it and spreading the word through various channels, or writing up a quick review on a product you know about.

Your followers will start to notice your contributions, and soon enough they will ask if you would like to help them with their own projects!

Intermediary sites such as Fyber are great ways to generate income via producing content for other websites. By offering your production skills to others, you get exposure and a way to make some extra money.

There are many ways to make money online by producing content and sharing it across the web.

Gain social media management experience

As mentioned earlier, being able to manage others’ accounts is a great way to gain some work experience for aspiring social media managers. There are many ways to get your hands on this practice!

Some of the most common ways include working as an assistant manager at a small business that doesn’t have its own account, managing a free account such as Twitter or Facebook, or even creating your own profile and becoming a follower.

All three of these can easily be done via your phone so you don’t need computer access to begin. By starting off with no money attached, it will help ease into the field more naturally.

And while having your own personal account may seem like a cliché thing to do when you start out, actually investing in an account just because you want one can help solidify your career choice.

Link your social media profiles

One of the first things you will need to do is link all of your accounts together. This includes linking your email account to each platform, as well as linking your profile pages.

By linking these accounts, you can now access everything in one place! You will no longer have to click around or create fake accounts to access your resources.

It also makes it much easier to copy and paste content across accounts. For example, if you make an update on one site, you can easily push that notification out to another account by copying and pasting the content.

That way you don’t have to re-write what you want to say every time! And for people who used to look after your account, they can now see the changes you made from this new account position.

Interconnectivity is one of the key foundations of social networking, and there are lots of ways to connect them all.

Practice marketing

A great way to get into social media management is by practicing it with someone already doing it. You can start your career as a social media manager by helping another person run their accounts, or you could even become an assistant manager that a company hires full time.

This is particularly helpful if you are not fully trained in social media yet, but have some experience using social networks. The best place to learn how to do this is from someone who is already successful at it!

Practice makes perfect, so there’s no reason to rush into being paid for what you know now. Take your time to hone your skills before getting hired. But don’t hesitate to ask other professionals around you for help though.

There’s always somebody more experienced than yourself out there. Find them and reward their expertise by learning something new.

Create your marketing strategy

The second part of social media management is creating a strategic plan for your business to include what channels you will use, how you will measure success, and then establishing goals and metrics for each channel.

It’s important to know that not every business needs all of these touches, depending on their personal or business style. But if you are willing to invest in it, I think you would find it very helpful as your company grows.

By having this process in place now, you can come back and re-evaluate later when things slow down.

Know your market

As with any career, knowing who your audience is will play a big part in how successful you are. With social media management, that knowledge comes not only through doing surveys and asking around, but also by looking at the field as a whole and what people are talking about.

There are always trends happening in the industry, so staying up-to-date can help you be more informed and establish yourself as an expert. You would know what tools are popular and which ones are becoming obsolete!

But before diving into managing accounts, make sure you understand the basics of the platform. This includes how to write a good status update or tweet, the difference between types of accounts (business, personal), and whether there’s an admin account like yours that other users can view content from.